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AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF
EDWARDS ON THE TRINITY
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'*i UNPUBLISHED 1'SSAY 01'
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NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNi I;* SONS
1903
AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF
EDWARDS ON THE TRINITY
WITH REMARKS ON EDWARDS
AND HIS THEOLOGY
BY
GEORGE P. FISHER, D.D., LL.D.
EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY
IN YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1903
T
hb lo
3
Copyright, 1903, by
CHARLES SCRIBNEK'S SONS
Published, October, 1903
TROW DIRECTOHY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK
V3
DEDICATION
I VENTURE TO DEDICATE THIS BOOK
TO THE LARGE NUMBER OF CULTIVATED READERS
WHO FROM DISINCLINATION
OR THE WANT OF LEISURE FOR THE TASK
HAVE NOT ACaUAINTED THEMSELVES WITH THE
CHARACTER AND WRITINGS
OF EDWARDS
PREFACE
The major part of the manuscripts of Jonathan Ed-
wards was for a good while in the hands of the late
Professor Edwards A. Park, for him to use in compos-
ing a biography of Edwards which he had projected —
— a task for which that eminent theological teacher was
in many respects admirably qualified. This under-
taking, however, owing to his advanced age and his high
ideal of what the proposed biography should be, was
not carried by him beyond its early preparatory stages.
On his decease, in accordance with an arrangement
made a number of years before with the representative
of the Edwards family, by whom the papers had been
lent to Professor Park, they were transferred permar
nently to Yale University.
One of the manuscripts thus received, printed from
a careful transcription, forms the concluding Part of
the present volume. The sketch of the principal events
in the life of the Author, and the characteristics of his
theology, which forms the Introduction, I have thought
would not be unwelcome, especially as the Fifth of Oc-
tober, 1903, is the two-hundredth anniversary of his
birth. Prior to the more general Introduction, some
statements pertaining to the literary history of the trea-
tise which follows it will not be out of place.
viii PREFACE
Most of the persons who are interested in theological
inquiries can hardly fail to be desirous to ascertain what
were the thoughts of so great a theologian as Jonathan
Edwards on the subject of the Trinity. A half-century
ago, rumors were afloat concerning an Essay on this
subject which was represented to exist in manuscript
among his unpublished papers. As early as 1851 Dr.
Bushnell called for the publication of a manuscript
"treatise" from the pen of Edwards, which had been
described to him as an " a priori argument for the Trin-
ity," that would occasion surprise were it suffered to
appear in print. 1 In 1880, Dr. 0. W. Holmes also com-
plained that the custodians of the Edwards manuscripts
chose to withhold from the public an Essay which, he
had been assured on "unquestionable authority," was
in "the direction of Arianism or Sabellianism." 2 A few
years later (about 1885), in an article in Herzog's Real-
Encyclopadie, 3 Professor Calvin E. Stowe referred to
an unpublished manuscript of Edwards on the Trinity
in a manner to indicate that he had examined it, since
he declares it to be a very able and carefully com-
posed dissertation manifesting boldness and indepen-
dence.
The same year new light was thrown on this topic by
Professor Egbert C. Smyth's publication from a copy,
which had been made long before, of a manuscript of
1 Bushnell, Christ in Theology, p. vi.
* International Review (1880), also Pages from an Old Volume of
Life, p. 397.
3 Quoted by Professor A. G. Allen, Jonathan Edwards (1889),
p. 341.
PREFACE ix
Edwards, which is entitled in its printed form "Ob-
servations concerning the Scripture (Economy of the
Trinity and Covenant of Redemption." The Essay
itself is brief, containing about 800 words, but it is con-
cise, and is in the characteristic style of Edwards. This
small volume is increased in value by the scholarly in-
troduction and notes of the Editor. As he remarks,
however, it is not a "treatise" — the term used in the
citation above from Dr. Bushnell. It deals with only
one branch of the subject, which is more fully treated
by its Author elsewhere. The topic of the "Observa-
tions" is the mutual relation of the Persons of the Trinity
with reference to the supposed Covenant of Redemp-
tion. It manifests no leaning towards Arianism or any.
other of the types of opinion usually characterized as
heterodox.
In 1865 an important manuscript of Edwards was
edited in Scotland and printed there for private cir-
culation, by Rev. A. B. Grosart, 1 who had obtained it
in America at a time when he had intended to prepare
a collective edition of the works of Edwards. This
"Treatise on Grace," which is the title given it, com-
prises a full discussion of the Scriptural Doctrine of
the Holy Spirit. It considers at length both the rela-
tion of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son, and
the function and agency of the Spirit in the work of re-
demption. Under this last head, it is maintained that
the presence and agency of the Holy Spirit is one and
1 Selections from the Unpublished Writings of Jonathan Edwards^
p. 19 ff.
x PREFACE
the same with the indwelling of God in the souls of
believers, and is the bond connecting them with Christ,
as in the immanent relations of the Deity it unites the
Father and the Son.
A notable and almost epoch-making contribution
on the writings and opinions of Edwards concerning
the Trinity appeared in 1881, in two Articles— forming
a connected whole — in the Bibliotheca Sacra, from the
pen of Professor Edwards A. Park. In the first Article
are copious extracts from the "Monthly Review" (April
1751) in which were recorded passages from "The Philo-
sophical Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion,"
by the Chevalier Ramsay — a work published shortly
before. Ramsay was a Scotchman by birth, with a
strong taste and corresponding talent for metaphysical
speculation. He espoused successive phases of religious
thought and belief, passing from orthodox Protestantism
through Deism and, later, Scepticism, into the Roman
Catholic Church. He resided for a considerable time
in France, and was for a part of this period in close
intercourse with Fenelon and under his influence. At
the widest remove from many of Ramsay's religious
tenets, Edwards approved, as concurrent with his
own, the views which Ramsay set forth, in his book,
of the infinitude of God, of His activity as eternal and
not originating in anything external but from within ;
of the analogy, up to a limit in measure, of that activity,
in the human mind ; of the three distinctions in the Deity,
coequal in all things, self-origination only excepted. In
the second Article Professor Park adverts to the refer-
PREFACE xi
ence that he had made in the first l to a manuscript of
Edwards containing "remarks on the Trinity," which,
he had there said, " has been mislaid and cannot yet be
found"; 2 although he also observes: "Within the last
few months, and particularly the last few weeks, I have
found writings of Edwards and memoranda of my own
which enable me to. say with assurance what I could
not have said without much diffidence. They have
enabled me to recognize what without them I could not
exactly recall" Later, in the second Article, 3 Professor
Park proceeds to give, from notes, some account of the
contents of the "mislaid," and not yet recovered, Essay.
After an interval, the vanished Essay turned up in a
place not open to observation, into which, as Professor
Park explained, it had accidentally fallen. He had it
transcribed with much painstaking, and at his own ex-
pense. This was read in his presence by several of his
clerical friends of high standing, or read to them. Notes
were made of its contents by at least one of them. The
Professor evidently had not a shadow of doubt of its
identity with the mislaid and later discovered docu-
ment which was still in his possession. It was manifest
that he knew nothing of the existence of any other manu-
f script of Edwards to be regarded in any just sense as a
rival of that which is printed in this volume. He con-
sidered this Essay, likewise, to be none other than the
Writing of Edwards on the Trinity the publication of
which had been repeatedly called for. There is some
difficulty arising from a seeming want of harmony be-
1 P. 147. a P. 187, note. • P. 359 £
xii PREFACE
tween certain expressions in the notes of Professor Park
in the Bibliotheca Sacra article and this Essay which had
been found and recognized by him as the lost manuscript.
In the description in the Article, he speaks of the Essay
as divided into two parts. The phraseology, also, of some
citations in the notes does not coincide with that Essay.
As to the first point, however, the expression in the
sketch in the notes is: "That [mislaid] Essay was di-
vided in fact though not in form into two parts." As to
particular discrepancies, Professor Park, in the Article l
refers, as the basis of his description of the mislaid Es-
say, not only to "memoranda of my [his] own," but
also, to other writings of Edwards which he had not
found before, but which now helped him " to recognize
what he could not exactly recall. 77 Moreover, in the
course of this sketch, he refers 2 briefly to language which
Edwards in other writings had applied to the several
Persons of the Trinity, and he quotes from one of his [Ed-
wards's] manuscripts a sentence on " the eternal gener-
ation of the Son." 3 On the next page, also, in a note on
"The Observations" of Edwards on the Trinity, edited
by Professor E.'C. Smyth, he remarks that Edwards
was wont to pen his thoughts as they occurred to him;
that he often expressed substantially the same thoughts
in different manuscripts. He adds: "The present writ-
er's remembrances of the Essay and some peculiar words
in it," inserted in the sketch of it, correspond with the
'Observations' as published by Professor Smyth." It
appears to me a reasonable supposition that, mingled
» P. 187. a p. 360. »P. 361, note 3.
PREFACE xiii
with the Professor's notes which had been pencilled in
the perusal of the Essay, were memoranda derived else-
where from Edwards, and that a confusion of notes from
different sources, which might readily occur, was the
occasion of the variations that have been mentioned.
Which of the several writings of Edwards it was that
provoked so much curiosity, and was now and then im-
agined to inculcate opinions at variance with orthodox
tenets is really a question of minor consequence, and
this for the simple reason that with respect to none of
them was there any ground for such an imputation or
suspicion. It appears to me probable that one reason
why certain proprietors and editors of writings of Ed-
wards hesitated about the publication of a dissertation
from his pen on the Trinity was the view, which Ed-
wards held and defended, of the subordination of Persons
in the Divine Being — the eternal generation of the Son
being a primary element in his faith. He was no more
tinctured with Arianism and other types of opinion
under the ban of the principal organized churches than
the oecumenical creeds are thus tinctured, as well as the
creeds of the orthodox doctors of theology generally in
the ancient and later periods of Church History. But
with the expiration of the century in which Edwards
lived, the Nicene doctrine of the eternal generation of
the Son ceased to exist any longer as a part of New Eng-
land orthodoxy. It was not only discarded by its lead-
ers, but it was often openly repudiated, and sometimes
with derision. There is no occasion for surprise, if
reports of what Edwards had written on the subject
xiv PREFACE
should make an impression within as well as without the
local schools of orthodoxy, that unpublished writings
of the foremost of the New England divines on this sub-
ject were not wholly free from a taint of heterodoxy.
With the renunciation of the philosophy on the subject
which was received and expounded by Edwards, and
with the ideas of the later New England schools on the
subject, Professor Park, despite his profound respect
for his genius and, in general, for his teachings, was in
full accord. Hence, the philosophical parts of the ex-
positions of the Trinity by Edwards, and such of his
Biblical interpretations as corresponded to them, did
not win from him concurrence or. sympathy.
From these circumstances it appears to me that the
question which of the several compositions of Edwards
on the doctrine of the Trinity was suspected of contain-
ing heresy, or whether it was either of them exclusively
that was subject to this imputation or surmise, are ques-
tions of minor importance, and that the same may be
said of the question, should it be mooted, which of them
was mislaid and found in Professor Park's dwelling.
The composition of it was evidently gradual and ex-
tended over a long period, from time to time. As will be
seen by the reader, interpolations of a few lines were
inserted in the first draft, and, besides these, additions,
here and there, of considerable length. The perusal
of the manuscript calls to mind his Letters to the Trus-
tees of Princeton College, in which he explains his habit-
ual method of pursuing his studies and of recording, as
he went on, their results, with an eye to the publication
PREFACE XV
of treatises on the subjects which he considered most
timely and important. The Essay on the Trinity shows
the rapidity with which his pen moved, and as far as the
forming of sentences and other matters of style are con-
cerned would have been doubtless subjected to a great
deal of revision had he set out to mould it for the press.
The Writings published by Edwards in his lifetime suf-
ficiently manifest the external literary features of his
style. An intermediate class, e.g., the History of Redemp-
tion, were composed not without care, but are not only
less elaborate in the contents, but in style lack the Auth-
or's finishing touches. It appears to me judicious to
present the present Essay to the reader just as it stands.
I do not propose to subject its doctrinal teaching to crit-
cism, but, if I am not mistaken, even in its present form,
it will be deemed lucid in its course of thought, and one
of the ablest arguments of this species which the History
of Doctrine affords in behalf of fundamental positions
of the Nicene theology. The Paper in the present vol-
ume, as far as I am qualified to judge, is decidedly the
most comprehensive and complete discussion of the
doctrine on all sides that emanated from its author.
G. P. F.
EDWARDS ON THE TRINITY
CONTENTS
PAKT I
PAGE
Remarks on Edwards and His Theology ... 1
PART II
An Unpublished Essay of Edwards on the
Trinity 75
APPENDIX
Note 1. — The Dismissal of Edwards from the
Church in Northampton 137
Note 2 The Account Given by Edwards of
His Method of Study 139
Note 3. — Augustine on the Trinity as Imaged
Eorth in the Human Mind 139
Note 4. — President T. D. Woolsey on the Per-
sonal Traits and the Influence of Ed-
wards 140
PART I
REMAKES ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
PAET I
KEMARKS ON EDWAEDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
In the Yale Alumni Catalogue, in the list of
the ten who compose the class of 1720, stands the
name of Jonathan Edwards. He was the only son
in a family of eleven children. On graduating,
he was not quite seventeen years of age. The
valedictory address was assigned to him. In
this address the College is warmly praised. The
prediction is even ventured that the day will come
when students will resort to it from foreign lands.
The accession in recent years of students from
oriental countries is a verification of the proph-
ecy in a sense then wholly an unconscious ele-
ment in the author's vaticination. His father, by
whom he was fitted for college, was the minis-
ter of East Windsor, Connecticut, was a graduate
of Harvard, and had kept up his habits of study.
He was respected as a preacher, and was regarded
as a man of polished manners. Intellectually he
was thought to be excelled by his wife, who was
3
4 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
educated in Boston, and was highly esteemed for
her mental vigor and her acquirements, as well as
for her gentle and affable ways. The son remained
in New Haven nearly two years, engaged in studies
preparatory for the ministry. The greater por-
tion of the next two years he spent in preaching
to a small Presbyterian church in New York. In
the closing part of this interval he was again at
his studies in college, where he was a tutor for a
third period of two years. It was in New Haven,
when at the age of twenty, that he married the
beautiful and saintly young woman whom, when
she was thirteen years old, he had depicted, not
in verse, yet in a strain which recalls the lines of
Milton in H Penseroso, —
With, even step and musing gait,
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes.
" They say " — thus he wrote — " there is a young
lady in New Haven who is beloved of that great
Being who made and rules the world, and that
there are certain seasons in which this great Being
in some way or other invisible, comes to her and
fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight, and
that she hardly cares for anything except to
meditate on Him ; that she expects after a while
KEMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 5
to be received up where He is, to be raised up out
of the world and caught up into heaven ; being
assured that He loves her too well to let her re-
main at a distance from Him always. There she is
to dwell with Him, and to be ravished with His
love and delight forever. Therefore if you pre-
sent all the world before her, with the richest of
its treasures, she disregards and cares not for it,
and is unmindful of any pain or affliction. She
has a strange sweetness in her mind, and singular
purity in her affections ; is most just and conscien-
tious in all her conduct, and you could not per-
suade her to do anything wrong or sinful if you
would give her all the world, lest she should
offend this great Being. She is of a wonderful
calmness, and universal benevolence of mind, es-
pecially after this great Grod has manifested Him-
self to her mind. She will sometimes go about
from place to place singing sweetly, and seems to
be always full of joy and pleasure, and no one
knows for what. She loves to be alone, walking
in the fields and groves, and seems to have some
one invisible always conversing with her." 1
When she was seventeen, shortly after the or-
dination of Edwards at Northampton, she became
1 Dwight, Works of Eckocwds> with Memoir^ Vol. I., p. 114.
6 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
his wife. The description given above of her traits
shows us likewise the traits and spirit of its au-
thor. It discloses the qualities which developed
in her a type of religious experience closely akin
to his own. At last, a little before his death, he
sent this message to her, who was at a distance
and could not be with him, by his daughter who
was at his bedside : " Give my kindest love to my
dearest wife, and tell her that the uncommon
union which has so long subsisted between us, has
been of such a nature, as, I trust, is spiritual, and
therefore will continue forever." l
For two or three months prior to his death,
which occurred in 1758, he held the office of Presi-
dent of the College of New Jersey — now Princeton
University. With this exception New England re-
mained the exclusive theatre of his life and work.
Edwards is one of the most astonishing examples
of precocious mental development of which we
have any record. One parallel instance is fur-
nished in the early life of Pascal. If Edwards did
not exhibit the mathematical talent so marked in
the boyhood of Pascal, he manifested, in connec-
tion with other remarkable intellectual traits, a
surprising capacity for observations in natural
1 S. E. Dwight, Works of Edwards, with Memoir, Vol. I., p. 578.
EEMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 7
science. Before he had reached his twelfth birth-
day, he wrote a paper on the Flying Spider which is
really a well-reasoned scientific essay on the habits
of this insect. He ascertained these by his own
most accurate observations. Of this paper, a com-
petent scientific authority, Dr. Packard of Brown
University, remarks : The writer " has anticipated
modern observers, who so far as I know have not
added much to his statements."
It was not the sphere of matter in itself con-
sidered, but predominantly the phenomena of
mind, that excited his interest and fascinated his
attention. In his fifteenth year he read that epoch-
making book, Locke's " Essay concerning Human
Understanding." To use his own words, he read it
with a delight greater "than the most greedy
miser finds when gathering up handfuls of silver
and gold from some newly discovered treasure." *
When a Sophomore in College, fourteen years old,
he wrote down reflections under the title " Being,"
in which he brings out the idealistic conception
of matter. Not long after he reproduced it in a
more full and careful form. While in College, he
opened note-books, one of which was entitled
" Mind," and another was upon " Natural Philoso-
1 Dwight, ut supra, Vol. 1^ p. 30.
8 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
phy." Both give evidence of extraordinary
powers of reasoning and of observation, and this
in the sections the composition of which falls
within the limit of his undergraduate days.
These early manuscripts contained outlines and
specific heads of a projected work on the universe,
material and mental. Through life, he was ac-
customed to do as Pascal did in the case of the
Pens6es — to set down thoughts and outlines to
serve as materials for works to be composed later.
In the interesting letter which he wrote to the
Trustees of Princeton College, giving the reasons
why he felt reluctant to take the office of Presi-
dent — which he concluded to accept — he explains
that he had always been accustomed to study
with pen in hand, recording his best thoughts on
countless subjects. One of the uses to which they
were put I have just stated. The spirit in which
he studied is seen in the resolutions and diaries
which have been preserved. Among the resolu-
tions which, before he was twenty, he wrote for
his own benefit is this : " Eesolved, when I think
of any theorem in divinity to be solved, immedi-
ately to do what I can toward solving it, if cir-
cumstances do not hinder." We meet with this
entry in his diary a little later; " I observe that
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 9
old men seldom have any advantage of new dis-
coveries, because they are beside the way of
thinking to which they have been so long used.
Resolved, if ever I live to [advanced] years, that
I will be impartial to hear the reasons of all pre-
tended discoveries, and receive them if rational,
how long soever I have been used to another way
of thinking." l
Edwards, his life long, was an interested reader,
not only of standard works of his time, as well as
of earlier treatises, and was diligent in the exam-
ination of the writings of authors against whom he
contended, but likewise of productions, not a few,
of a non-theological class. In a manuscript quarto,
entitled, in his own hand-writing, " Catalogue,"
we find, with titles of books which he heard of,
lists of books " to be read or to be inquired for." 2
In the earliest of these records, among such
books as Baxter's Life, and Watts's Poems, are
The Guardian, Milton's Paradise Lost, Luther's
Colloquies, Quarles's Poems, Newton's Principia
and Opticks, Plutarch's Lives, Cowper's Anato-
my, Walter Ealeigh's History. Some — Locke, for
instance — are probably set down to be re-read.
1 Dwight, ui supra, Vol. I., p. 94; comp. p. 71.
3 Its contents are set forth by Professor Dexter, The Manuscripts,
of Jonathan Edwards^ pp. 15, 16.
10 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
Books to be obtained include " the best " books
on Geography, Church History, Chronology, His-
torical Dictionary, of the nature of Bayle's work,
the Lives of the Philosophers. Later entries are
Pope's Homer, and his Miscellaneous Works, The
Spectator, Addison's Writings, Young's Night
Thoughts, Richardson's Clarissa and Pamela, F6ne-
lon's Telemachus, Fielding's Amelia, and, later, an
Abridgment of Johnson's Dictionary.
That Edwards stands, as he deserves to stand,
in the front rank of philosophical thinkers and
of theologians is too generally conceded at the
present day to require any demonstration.
Unquestionably he is to be associated with
Berkeley and Hume, as one of the three greatest
metaphysical thinkers of the English race in the
eighteenth century. The verdict written a good
while ago by Dugald Stewart will be sanctioned
by judges qualified to speak. After the remark
that Edwards is the only philosopher of note whom
America had produced, Stewart adds : " In logical
acuteness and subtility, he does not yield to any
disputant bred in the universities of Europe." l His
power of subtle argument is pronounced by Sir
James Mackintosh, who was not given to over-
1 Progress of Philosophy (1820), p. 206,
EEMAEKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY U
statement, " to have been unmatched, certainly
unsurpassed, among men." 1 Robert Hall, one of
the ablest English preachers of the last century, a
fellow-student of Mackintosh, in the enthusiasm of
his admiration of the genius of Edwards, styled
him "the greatest of the sons of men." " I have
long esteemed him," wrote Chalmers, one of the
princes among Scottish divines, " as the greatest of
theologians." 2 One of the most emphatic of the
eulogists of Edwards is the leader of a school
quite diverse from that of Chalmers, Frederic D.
Maurice. Critics, of whom Sir Leslie Stephen
and Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes are examples,
with commendable candor, in conjunction with an
unmingled antipathy to Edwards's theological sys-
tem and to a class of inferences deduced by him
from it, recognize his intellectual superiority and
his exalted moral worth. 3 Stephen speaks of him as
"the ablest of American thinkers," and, like many
others, couples his name with that of Franklin as
the two foremost writers of the earlier period. If,
says Stephen, qualities are to be traced to inherit-
ance, then the element of mother wit, characteris-
1 Progress of Ethical Pfiilosophy, p. 69.
' 2 Works, Vol. I., p. 285.
8 Holmes, in Pages from an Old Volume of Life (1891), XI. ; pp.
365, etal.; pp. 395, 400.
12 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
tic of " the Yankee," lias its normal representative
in Franklin, and that of " transcendental enthusi-
asm " in Edwards. The same author writes that
on " the living truths " that formed a part of his
theory is founded " a religious and moral system
of morality which, however erroneous it may ap-
pear to some thinkers, is conspicuous for its vigor
and loftiness. Edwards often shows himself a
worthy successor of the great men who led the
moral revolt of the Reformation ... he
grasps the central truths on which all real noble
morality must be based." Stephen not only pays
honor to " the logical keenness of the great meta-
physician," but, also, has words of praise for one
who was an exception to the ordinary fact in that
the solemn resolutions relative to character and
conduct, made when he was " almost a boy," had
in his case a meaning and bore corresponding re-
sults. 1 Dr. Holmes remarks that "of all the
scholars and philosophers that America had pro-
duced" before the beginning of the nineteenth
century, two only- [Franklin and Edwards] had
established a considerable and permanent reputa-
tion in the world of European thought. 2 In com-
1 Stephen, in Fraser's Magazine, Nov., 1893, pp. 531, 536, et at.
9 Holmes, p. 362.
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 13
paring Edwards and Pascal, lie expresses the
" hope that their spirits have met long ago in a
better world, for each was a saintly being." He
adds : " The feeling which naturally arises in con-
templating the character of Jonathan Edwards is
that of deep reverence for a man who seems to
have been anointed from his birth ; who lived a
life pure, laborious, self-denying, occupied with the
highest themes, and busy in the highest kind of
labor, — such a life as in another church might have
given him a place in the c Acta Sanctorum.' " x
The influence of Edwards has not only been
powerfully felt in Scotland by leaders in theolog-
ical thought. It has been felt likewise by prom-
inent theologians in England. One of them in the
century lately closed was Andrew Fuller. Vastly
more might be said of the power exerted by him
on theology in America. This is far from being
limited to New England, although naturally it has
been preeminent in this part of the country. The
historian, Bancroft, writes : " He that would know
the workings of the New England mind in the
middle of the last p.&, the 18th] century, and the
throbbings of its heart, must give his days and
nights to the study of Jonathan Edwards." To
1 Holmes, p. 462.
14 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
this remark Professor Allen subjoins the just ob-
servation : " He that would understand the signif-
icance of later New England thought, must make
Edwards the first object of his study." 1 Dr.
Holmes quotes with apparent approval from Ban-
croft — respecting the relations of Edwards to his
" theological successors " — the names of Kirkland
and Channing being included in the list, the re-
mark that "his influence is discernible on every
leading mind." 2 At home and abroad the influ-
ence referred to in these citations was potent in
spiritual life as well as in the particular province
of theological opinion.
In the critical analysis of the mental outfit of
Edwards, it would be a gross mistake to overlook
the spiritual insight and capacity of feeling, which
is one part of the truth in the remark of Mackin-
tosh concerning him, that he was a rationalist and
a mystic. If these appellations are to be taken in
the literal, current meaning, they require modifi-
cation. He was a rationalist, if the purport of' the
statement be that he had no low estimate of reason
as an endowment of man. He has full confidence
in the native powers of reason. He does not fly
i Allen, Jonathan Edwards (an interesting and valuable biography),
p. vi.
9 Holmes, vi supra^ p. 362.
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 15
from reason to betake himself to Scripture. In
controversy he does not appeal from reason to any
other tribunal. His position is that if reason is
read aright there is no discord in it with Script-
ure, but that the two authorities are in concord.
The objection, coming from friend or foe, that a
thesis or an argument is based on metaphysics or
drawn from that source, he treats with disdain.
He speaks of it as ridiculous. It were as prop-
er, he says, to object to a course of argument
on account of the language in which it is ex-
pressed. " The question is not, whether what is
said be metaphysics, physics, logic, or mathemat-
ics, Latin, French, JEngHsTi, or M6ha%o\ but
whether the reasoning bet good, and the argu-
ments truly conclusive." *
Yet, with all his confidence in the reasoning
faculty, he is at a heaven- wide remove from any
low esteem of distinctively spiritual intuitions
and such experiences of the soul as, when fairly
tested, are seen to be clear of morbid imagination
or emotion. Few, if any, theologians have thought
and written in a more independent spirit. He is
subservient in his intellectual verdicts to no leader.
He received more stimulus from Locke than from
1 Treatise ontheWill, p. iv., §xiii.; Dwight, ut supra, Vol. IL, p. 275.
16 EEMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
any other philosopher. To him he owed fertile
suggestions. But he differs from Locke on funda-
mental points in philosophy. He rejected, for
example, nominalism. His view of the sources of
knowledge is the antipode of that of Locke. To
his theological system in its central tenets he was
directly adverse. Admitting that he might be
called a Calvinist as distinguished from an Armin-
ian, he disclaimed a dependence on Calvin, and at
the same time asserted that with some of his in-
culcations he did not agree. 1 He did not under :
take to confute adversaries in opinion without a
thorough personal examination of their writ-
ings. To be sure, he did not feel bound, nor
was it practicable for him, situated as he was, to
read all the adherents of doctrines at variance
with his own. To the accusation that on the
question of free-will and necessity he was in
agreement with Hobbes, he replies that he cannot
answer the imputation, since "it happens" he
had not read Hobbes. 2 Elsewhere, to the im-
putation that a certain proposition or argument
of his may be read in some heretical author, he
says that the objection has no force : everything
that a heretic believes is not of course erroneous.
1 Treatise on the Will, Preface, p. 13. 2 Ibid.^ p. iv., § vi.
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 17
As remarked above, on the nature of matter
the idealism, which remained his creed through
life, appears in his early essay on " Being," and it
is definitely stated and advocated in one of the
papers in the Notes on Mind, — in a part written
probably while he was still a tutor in College.
This belief was, to quote his own words, that
" the substance of all bodies is the infinitely exact,
and precise, and perfectly stable idea, in God's
mind, together with His stable will that the same
shall be gradually communicated to us and to
other minds, according to certain fixed and exact
established methods and laws ; or, in somewhat
different language, the infinitely exact and precise
Divine Idea, together with an answerable, per-
fectly exact, precise and stable will, with respect
to correspondent communications to created minds
and effects on their minds." What is called the
" substance " of material existences is asserted to be
a fiction put in the place of God, of His ideas and
consistent, constant will. Minds alone have sub-
stantial being ; the Infinite Mind, and finite minds,
which in Him "live and move and have their being."
Edwards provided in his expositions a caveat
against Pantheism, on which his theory of matter
seems to verge.
18 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
In the proposition that material things have
no being independent of the perception of them
either by God or by other mental beings whom
He empowers to perceive them, Edwards is at
one with Berkeley in the mature expression which
Berkeley gave to his theory-
The coincidence of the idealism of Edwards
with that of Berkeley is so striking that not
unnaturally it has been conjectured by critics, in-
cluding Professor Fraser, his able and learned
biographer, that it was from Berkeley that the
youthful American philosopher imbibed his views.
This, I may be allowed to say, was once my own
impression. Further investigation of the question,
however, has proved it to be in the highest degree
probable that this inference is a mistaken one. 1
It was owing to the powerful stimulus imparted
to the young Yale student by the writings of
Locke that he was prompted to move on in a path
of his own, quite beyond any conclusion reached
in Locke's quickening essay. The " new philoso-
phy " to which Edwards afterwards refers with
approval, appears to have been the publications
1 In his recent edition of Berkeley's writings, Dr. Eraser says : " I
am now less disposed to this conjecture than formerly." Vol. III.,
p. 393.
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 19
of Sir Isaac Newton, the influence of which, in
connection with that of Locke, was a notable spur
in his intellectual progress. Nevertheless, the
coupling of the names of Edwards and Berkeley
in Yale University is for more than one reason
justified.
It is fit and proper that the two most conspicu-
ous memorial windows in the front wall of Battell
Chapel should commemorate these two illustrious
philosophers. The noble Bishop of Cloyne, a
man lifted above all ecclesiastical prejudice, hav-
ing been disappointed as to his project for found-
ing in Bermuda a college for the education of
Indians, not only established at Yale a Scholarship
which bears his name, but also sent over to the
College a gift of one thousand well-chosen vol-
umes, — the largest single collection of books that
had ever been brought to America. On the win-
dow devoted to his honor, the words are in-
scribed, "Hie Monumenta Posuit Animi Sui
Liber alis" — "Here he placed memorials of his
liberal spirit." He might smile, but his liberal
mind would not be offended were he to read the
words from the pen of Professor Thacher, on the
Edwards window, the mate of his own : " Summi
in Ecelesia OrcHnis Vates? President Dwight
20 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
wanted to have the building that took the sur-
name of "North Middle" called Berkeley Hall.
It is well that Yale now has a dormitory building
named after the prelate, to whom, as Pope tells
us, was "ascribed every virtue under Heaven."
President Clap was evidently disposed to adopt
Berkeley's doctrine concerning matter. " This
College," says the President " will always retain
a most grateful sense of his Generosity and Merits ;
and probably a favorable Opinion of his Idea of
material Substance ; as not consisting in an un-
known and inconceivable substratum but in a
stated Union and Combination of Sensible Ideas,
excited from without, by some Intelligent Being."
The good President would have been gratified to
see the modern trend of philosophical thought to-
ward objective idealism, a tendency probably not
without sympathy at Yale, even though the rea-
sons for it and for the consequent homage to the
genius of Berkeley, are not the presents he made
to the College.
I may be permitted to say that, time and again, as
I have returned to the writings of Edwards, I have
been increasingly struck with the variety as well
as the superiority of his powers. In reading him
I have called to mind by a natural association
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 21
exalted names in the history of Christian Doc-
trine — names of men who have illustrated this rare
blending of light and heat, — such as Augustine
and Aquinas, and, above all, Anselm. The treatise
on the Will, a masterpiece of logic though it be,
does not outrank in merit some other products of
his pen of a different class. The essay on the Last
End of God in Creation, and the essay on the Nat-
ure of True Virtue, stand fully as high in the scale.
Other productions of Edwards are also on the
same high plane, but are likewise in a different vein
from the more famous treatise on the "Will. Let
any discerning student take up this treatise and
observe the sharp, unrelenting logic with which
the author hunts down his opponents, and then
let him take up the same author's sermon on the
Nature and Reality of Spiritual Light, or passages
in his book on the Affections, or some of the ex-
tracts from his Diary. It is like passing from the
pages of Scotus or Aquinas to Thomas k Kempis,
or St. Francis of Assisi.
Those to whom the name of Edwards calls up
only the image of a dry reasoner or of an austere
preacher, presenting detailed pictures of the suffer-
ings of lost souls, should read the meditations on
the " beauty and sweetness " — I use his owii
22 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
words — of divine things, when to his almost in-
spired vision the whole face of nature was trans-
figured. When still in his youth, there sprang up
"a sense of divine things," after which, he tells us,
"the appearance of everything was altered ; there
seemed to be, as it were, a calm, sweet cast, or ap-
pearance of divine glory in almost everything ; in
the sun, moon and stars ; in the clouds and blue
sky ; in the grass, flowers, trees ; in the water and
all nature, which used greatly to fix my mind. I
often used to sit and view the moon for a long
time ; and in the day, spent much time in viewing
the clouds and sky, to behold the sweet glory of
God in these things; in the meantime, singing
forth with a low voice my contemplations of the
Creator and Redeemer." 1 He would have sym-
pathized with Wordsworth's Lines above Tintern
Abbey, only infusing into them a more theistic
tinge :
I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Gf elevated thought ; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man.
1 Dwight, ut supra,) Vol. I., p. 61.
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY. 23
" I spent most of my time," lie continues, " think-
ing of divine things, year after year ; often walk-
ing alone in the woods and solitary places, for
meditation, soliloquy and prayer," and converse
with God. I was almost constantly in ejaculatory
prayer, wherever I was."
When a very young preacher in New York, as
he relates, he " frequently used to retire into a
solitary place on the banks of the Hudson River,
at some distance from the city, for contemplation
on divine things and secret converse with God,
and had many sweet hours there. 1 Experiences of
this character did not terminate. He speaks thus
of an incident that occurred at Northampton :
"Once as I rode out into the woods for my health,
in 1737, having alighted from my horse in a re-
tired place, as my manner commonly has been, to
walk for divine contemplation and prayer, I had
a view, that for me was extraordinary, of the glory
of the Son of God, as Mediator between God and
man, and his wonderful great, full, pure and sweet
grace and love, and meek and gentle condescen-
sion. This grace that appeared so calm and sweet,
appeared also great above the heavens. The per-
son of Christ appeared ineffably excellent, with
1 Dwight, ut supra. Vol. I. , p. 66.
24 EEMAEKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
an excellency great enough to swallow up all
thought and conception — which continued, as near
as I can judge, about an hour ; which kept me,
the greater part of the time, in a flood of tears,
and weeping aloud ; I felt an ardency of soul to
be, what I know not otherwise how to express,
emptied and annihilated ; to lie in the dust and be
full of Christ alone. To love him with a holy and
pure love ; to trust in him ; to live upon him ; to
serve and follow him ; and to be perfectly sancti-
fied and made pure with a divine and heavenly
purity. I have, several other times, had views
very much of the same nature, and which have
had the same effects." 1
His Puritan ancestry, the character of his
training, and the circumstances of the time con-
spired to make it natural and almost inevitable
that he should become the champion of Calvinism.
The first settlers of New England — that is to say,
the twenty-nine thousand Englishmen who planted
these shores during the interval between the land-
ing of the Pilgrims in 1620 and the assembling of
the Long Parliament in 1640, when the immigra-
tion practically ceased — shared to the full in the
interest which prevailed in the home country in
iPwight, Vol. I., p. 133
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 25
the discussions, not merely on Church polity, but
also on Christian theology. They were firm ad-
herents of the Genevan type of doctrine. This
had held almost undisputed sway in England
through the reign of Elizabeth. The Institutes
of Calvin had been virtually the text-book of the
English Protestant Clergy. Even Hooker, the
noblest expounder and champion of the Anglican
Ecclesiastical system, while he deprecates the un-
measured deference paid in England to Calvin's
authority, pronounces a glowing eulogy upon him
and his writings — declaring him to be " incompar-
ably the greatest man whom the French Church" —
the Protestant Church of France — "had produced."
Calvin had achieved what no other before him
had accomplished. He had organized the Protes-
tant teaching into a compact and coherent system.
It involved the complete abjuring of human
merit in the process of salvation. It attributed to
God and not to man's agency not only the Atone-
ment, the ground of forgiveness, but also and
equally the process of the victory over sin in the
soul, from first to last. It discarded the idea that
anything could occur, either in the world without
or in the mind within, independently of the will
and purpose of the Ruler of the universe. In this
26 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
proposition was embodied what was the creed
alike of the Genevan school, and of Luther and
the early Lutherans. In the view of the Calvin-
ists, predestination was presupposed in the sense
of man's absolute dependence, in trust in the uni-
versal control of Divine Providence, and in unmin-
gled gratitude for grace as the fountain of all that
is good in the soul.
Whatever may be said of the Calvinistic creed,
it breathed into its humblest adherents humility
and courage, and inspired with valor and fortitude
the heroic leaders, like Coligni, and William III.,
of whom Macaulay says : " The tenet of predesti-
nation was the keystone of his religion. He even
declared that if he were to abandon that tenet
he must abandon with it all belief in a superin-
tending Providence, and must become a mere
Epicurean." 1 Calvinists have not piled tome
upon tome of polemical writings, they have not
pined in dungeons and faced death on the bat-
tle-field, for a merely speculative notion. It was
the practical truth which they identified with it
as the logical equivalent of that belief, which
made them cling to it with unyielding tenacity.
But no wonder that unanimity in this solution
'History of England, Vol. II. (Am. Ed.), p. 149.
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 27
of the old problem of liberty and necessity, a
theme of debate since the dawn of speculation,
could not be kept up in the ranks of those who
had accepted it.
When New England was colonized, not only
disagreement with minor features of Calvinism
but open dissent from the characteristic principle
of unconditional election, was gaining ground in
Calvinistic communities. As late as 1618, dele-
gates had been sent by James I., himself a Cal-
vinist, to Holland, to aid at the Synod of Dort in
the erection of barriers to the spread of the Ar-
minian revolt. But as far as the Church of Eng-
land was concerned, such resistance was ineffect-
ual. Independently of their Calvinism, the New
England colonists of Massachusetts and Connecti-
cut, in common with the whole body of Puritans
in the motherland, were sworn foes of an illiterate
ministry. This antipathy, more than ever rea-
sonable in the circumstances in which they found
themselves, far away from the ancient seats of
learning, was mixed with a well-founded fear lest
their posterity should sink into ignorance and be
cursed with unenlightened teachers of the Gospel.
This apprehension was keenly felt by the not
less than eighty ministers, of whom not less than
28 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
half had been trained in the colleges of Oxford
and Cambridge, and who, it is not an exaggera-
tion to say, beyond any other source of influence
made New England what it became.
This was the prime cause of the founding of
Harvard in 1636, and, when, at the close of the
century, the distance of western New England
from Cambridge was felt to be too great, it was
the prime motive in the founding of Yale. Both
at Harvard and Yale, theology naturally had the
place of honor in the curriculum. The text-
books in doctrine — for example, Wollebius and
Ames — are chiefly known at present only to in-
quisitive theological students. These books were
not wanting in acumen and logical strength, but
they belong among the dry products of the
waning era of Protestant Scholasticism, and were
long ago consigned to the sepulchre of that solid
but unpalatable species of literature.
In the first period after the foundation of Yale,
Hebrew, like Greek and Latin, was a required
study. In the College laws printed in 1748, it
was ordained that systematic divinity should be
taught to all the classes, and that the Westminster
Confession should be one of the text-books that
all the classes, " through the whole time of their
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 29
college life " should recite. This branch, the prop-
er name of which is dogmatic theology or philo-
sophical theology, had a very marked precedence
in the circle of studies for the ministry. The
natural direction of thought, especially in the con-
flicts of the early days, will account for the pre-
eminence accorded to this discipline. Under this
head, in American Church history, the movement
which was styled, from the place of its origin and
principal seat, New England Theology, at the out-
set often called the a New Divinity," is the most
original development, and, on the whole, the most
influential. With this movement, in its inception
and its later stages, Yale College is identified.
There all of its noted leaders, with one exception,
were educated. It is the movement the rise of
which stands in historic connection with the so-
called Great Revival of 1740, and is linked to the
name of the most illustrious of American philos-
ophers and divines. At a very early date, if not
from the beginning, the custom arose for resident
graduates to prosecute studies preparatory for the
ministry. From the year 1755, this class of pu-
pils were able to receive theological instruction
from the Professor of Divinity.
In the youth of Edwards the reaction against
30 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
the characteristic points of Calvinism was well
under way even in New England, especially in
the eastern portion. Arminianism in the preceding
century, planted and nourished by leaders of the
talents and learning of Arminius, Episcopius, and
Grotius, had planted itself in England and spread,
under the Stuarts, among the clergy of the Estab-
lished Church. When Edwards came forward as
an author it had gained ground in England in the
Puritan ranks, and affected certain honored lead-
ers, among whom were Eidgley, Watts, and Dod-
dridge. It is not too much to say that in the two
last-named authors the Calvinistic definition of
Election and kindred topics was emasculated.
Where there was no thought of an ecclesiastical
separation from the Puritan churches, yet a nomi-
nalistic, or what might be styled a Lockeian,
Calvinism — although Locke's religious creed was
at swords' points with that of orthodox Puritan-
ism of every grade — took the place of the Augus-
tinian philosophy. The English Arminian au-
thors, and the class of dissenters just referred to,
won partial and decided converts in New Eng-
land, where the symbols of Puritan theology, the
Westminster Confessions and Catechisms, had for-
merly held an undivided sway. The time had
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 31
come when Calvinism on this side of the water,
as well as in Great Britain, if it was to hold its
own, stood in need of competent defenders.
The fundamental principle in the philosophical
and religious system of Edwards is the doctrine
of the Absolute. The existence and necessary
existence of a Being, eternal, infinite and omni-
present, a being self-conscious, yet not dependent
for self-consciousness on aught exterior to Himself,
was propounded with emphasis in the youthful
essay, the title of which is " Being." This prin-
ciple was ever after the groundwork of his teach-
ing. In his mind God was the supreme and ab-
sorbing object of contemplation and study. His
supremacy, the independence of His being and per-
fections, was the groundwork of his creed. The
" sovereignty " of God he insisted on and empha-
sized. At times, in one sermon in particular, he
uses language of which the natural interpretation,
and one that has been not infrequent, is that
election is an arbitrary selection on the part of
God — purely a matter of will. This would make
it a separate peculiar attribute, standing by itself
— an attribute without which God would lose one
of His distinguishing perfections. But this is not
32 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
the idea of sovereignty which in various places he
explicitly states and defends. His affirmation is
that the wisdom and holiness of God lie back of
His decrees. " It is fit," he says, " that He who is ab-
solutely perfect, and infinitely wise, and the Foun-
tain of all wisdom, should determine everything by
his own will, even things of the greatest impor-
tance. 1 He is a " being in everything determined
by his own counsel, having no other rule but his
own wisdom." 2 The infelicity of using language,
at least occasionally, implying that " sovereignty "
is nothing more than will without reason back of
it, is a fault of not a few Calvinistic teachers in
the past, and even of Calvin himself. Yet Calvin
distinctly avers — " dare affirmo " are his words —
that the decrees of God are dictated by wisdom.
It was when Edwards was in the midst of his
labors as a missionary to the Indians that he com-
posed his treatise on the Will. 3 Of this work we
will speak after a few words relative to this period
in his life.
In 1735, Rev. John Sergeant, who graduated at
> Dwight's ed., Vol. III., p. 506.
2 Ibid., Vol. II., p. 229. See other declarations made in the strongest
terms, on pp. 227, 230, 232.
8 His work as a missionary followed his dismissal at Northampton.
On this event, which is closely connected with theological controversies,
see Appendix, Note i.
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 33
Yale in 1730, and succeeded Edwards as a tutor,
began his work among the wandering Mohegans
and other Indians in Stockbridge and the neigh-
borhood. He mastered their language and prose-
cuted his labors, under varied obstacles, with
perseverance and success, until his death in 1749.
Two years after, Edwards, on leaving Northamp-
ton on account of the troubles there, accepted the
post thus left vacant and held it for six years. He
attended faithfully to his task. A letter from
him to Sir William Pepperel, Governor of the
Province, respecting the plan of a school for
Indian girls at Stockbridge, is interesting in its
enlightened views on the subject of education. 1
He speaks not only of this particular matter,
but in reference to English-speaking youth in gen-
eral. He wants the method of instruction for the
offspring of the Indians to be free, as he expresses
it, from "the gross defects of the ordinary method
of teaching among the English." As one of these
grand defects, he specifies the habit of accustom-
ing children to "learning without understanding."
They are taught to read, he says, without knowing
the meaning of what they read, and this practice
goes on, even long after they are capable of under-
i Dwight, ut supra, p. 474.
34 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
standing. They are taught the Catechism in the
same way. They form the habit of repeating
words without ideas. The child, he declares with
emphasis, in reading the Bible should be taught to
understand things as well as words. Questions
should be put to the young in the same familiar
manner as "they are asked questions commonly
about their ordinary affairs." He asserts that " the
common methods of instruction in New England"
are grossly defective. He goes on to say that
children should be taught in a plain way Script-
ural history, and Bible stories of the most inter-
esting and important events in the Jewish nation
and in the world at large, since secular history is
connected with the story of Israel. He would
have children, moreover, taught "something in
general of ecclesiastical history, of the chronology
of events, and of historical geography." If it be
thought that all children do not need instruction
so extended, he still maintains that " children of
the best genius" might at least enjoy this ad-
vantage. "All would serve," he insists, the more
speedily and effectually, to change the taste of
Indians, and " to bring them off from their bar-
barism and brutality to a relish for those things
which belong to civilization and refinement."
KEMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 35
Music especially he recommends, as a school for
sensibility and affection. He writes to his father
(January 27, 1752): "The Indians seem much
pleased with my family, especially my wife. They
are generally more sober and serious than they used
to be. Besides the Stockbridge Indians, there are
above sixty of the Six Nations, who live here for
the sake of instruction. Twenty are lately come
to dwell here, who came from about two hundred
miles beyond Albany." x Greed of gain on the
part of certain whites, anxious to enrich them-
selves, and elements of opposition from other
sources, were harmful to the mission at Stock-
bridge. But the ideal of Edwards, possibly un-
practical in some of its features, was a high one,
and he bent all his efforts to the realization of it.
Edwards was thoroughly persuaded that the
arguments of Whitby and other Arminian polem-
ics were flimsy and capable of easy refutation.
On the other hand, the conspicuous English
writers on the Calvinistic side were perceived by
him to be half-hearted and vacillating in their rea-
soning and were considered to have virtually given
up the key of their position into the hands of the
1 Dwight, ut swpra, Vol. I., p. 486.
36 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
enemy. Edwards proposed to bring the confident
adversaries "to the test of strictest reasoning."
On the other hand, he challenged for his own ar-
guments the severest scrutiny, and only depre-
cated the charge that they were " metaphysical,"
as being a vague and impertinent objection.
In a few months, at Stockbridge, he wrote his
book on the Will. In this discussion of the prob-
lem of liberty and necessity, he undertook to es-
tablish the doctrine of determinism, — the estab-
lished, uniform connection of the specification or
particular direction of the will in the act of choos-
ing, with its mental antecedents — more definitely,
with the state of feeling respecting the relative
desirableness of the one and the other object pre-
sented for choice.
The opposite view, he contends, is equivalent
to a doctrine of chance and, if carried out, would
land its advocates in atheism. The points of co-
incidence between his reasoning in behalf of that
"moral necessity," — which, with many ancient
and modern leaders in philosophy and theology,
he denied to involve "constraint," in any proper
sense of the term — with other writers, are nothing
more than coincidence. They imply no borrow-
ing on his part from other supporters of a like
EEMARKS ON EDWAEDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 37
thesis. There is reason to believe that he had
never read Collins. While he was unquestion-
ably influenced by suggestions of Locke on the
significance of liberty and choice, his indepen-
dence in thought is equally manifest.
In common with so many advocates of the doc-
trine of necessity, he insisted on the law of cause
and effect and its application, without shrinking
or evasion, to the acts of the will The certainty
of their being what they are results from their
antecedents. With unsparing rigor he hunts
down his opponents in their real or probable, or
even possible, retreats. This causal relation as
pertaining to the will is declared to be universal.
It holds true of good and evil choices. Not men
alone, but all moral beings without exception, are
subject to it. In this declaration Edwards de-
parts from Augustine and the more general Cal-
vinistic teaching, as in the Westminster creeds,
which attributes to Adam a certain liberty of will
or power of contrary choice. According to Ed-
wards, God himself is not only under a necessity
to be morally perfect, but the same moral necessity
which is predicable of saint and sinner, is likewise
predicable of all the choices and volitions of the
Supreme Being. Edwards maintains in his Letter
38 KEJVIARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
to his Scottish correspondent, Erskine, 1 that "men
are to-day in possession of all the liberty which it
has entered into the heart of man to conceive."
In order to comprehend the theory of Edwards
it is needful to get at his view of the nature of
causation. In his early writing, "The Mind," he
explains, " Cause to be that, after, or upon, the
Existence of which, or the Existence in such a
manner, the existence of another thing follows."
He defines, also, Power as " the Connection be-
tween these two existences, or between the Cause
and Effect." 2 The question cannot fail to occur
to the student of Edwards, whether he connects
with the idea of Power, as related to choices, more
than Hume's and Mill's notion of uniformity of
succession. In Part IL, Section III., of the Treatise
on the Will, he enters into a full exposition of his
use of the word " Cause." A frequent use, he says,
makes it include " a positive efficiency or influence
to procktce a thing " ; but, he adds, it may signify
an indispensable antecedent. "In the same con-
nection, he says: Moral "Causes" — i.e., antece-
dents of choice — " may be Causes in as proper a
sense as any Causes whatsoever," and "may be
1 Dwight's Works, etc., Vol. II. , p. 293.
2 Dwight, ibid., Vol. II., p. 681.
KEMARKS ON EDWAKDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 39
as truly the reason and ground of an Event's
coming to pass" (p. 50). In the course of his
treatise he speaks of motives as exciting to choice
or volition, as tendmg to produce choice. It is,
therefore, probable that he connected efficiency
with the operation of motives. 1 Moreover, he
says that the distinction between "natural" and
"moral" necessity is not that in the latter case
" the nature of things is not concerned in it," as
well as in the former. "The difference does not
lie so much in the nature of the connection as in
the two terms connected, and in the effect, which
in the latter case is ' voluntary action.' " 2
Now, in Edwards's idealistic opinion as to all
external things, perception by created beings is
owing to the stable will of God, which not only
produces ideas but, as to things perceived, causes
them to be objects of perception. The question
naturally arises whether motives, the antecedents
of voluntary action, and their relative " strength,"
are not likewise understood by him, as the effect
of the stable, constant exercise of the divine will ?
It must be borne in mind that his usual answer to
the objection that if there were no power of alter-
native choice we should not be responsible for
* Dwighfs Ed., Vol. II., p. 25. »/&&., pp. 33, 34.
: REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
vrong moral choices, is that the wrong of a choice
ies not in its cause, but in its nature.
The Idealism of Edwards, his view of the Im-
nanence of God, and his doctrine of moral neces-
ity as connected with voluntary action, would
eem to involve Pantheism. In fact, in earlier and
ater writings, he uses language which identifies
Tod with the world. In his early " Notes on the
Mind " he writes : " God and real existence are the
same ; God is, and there is none else. ... It
s impossible that God be otherwise than excellent,
! or He is the infinite, universal and all-comprehend-
ng excellence." He speaks of God's " infinite
imountxxr quantity of existence" In his late, pos-
ihumous, treatise on the End of God in Creation,
le says of God that His "being and beauty is,
is it w T ere, the sum and comprehension of all ex-
stence and excellence " much more than the Sun
s " the comprehension of all the light and bright-
less of the sky." In his treatise on Virtue, he
vrites that God " is, in effect, being in general, and
jomprehends universal existence." "When still in
lis youth, he speaks of striving for as clear a
mowledge of God's action "with respect to spirit
md mind as he has of his operation concerning
natter and bodies." He writes: "Man's reason
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 41
and conscience seem to be a participation of the
divine essence." As we have seen that in his
view of voluntary action the antecedents of what
we call choice, and the consequent are subsumed
under the principle of cause and effect.
Nevertheless Edwards was a Theist and not in
the least shaken in his conviction. He believed
without misgiving in the personality of God.
Even in some of the foregoing citations it is the
Excellence of God, meaning His Moral Excel-
lence, to which he refers. Of the responsibility
of men and of the unspeakable guilt of sin he
had not the shadow of a doubt. He holds that
creation is not necessary to the happiness of God,
which is infinite. His delight in self-communica-
tion — what is termed His " communicative " dispo-
sition, a " diffusive " disposition — not His personal
need of creation, if one may so say, which moves
Him. The existence of creatures does not militate
against the infinitude of that love of himself which
is called for by the infinitude of His being. Their
relation to Him is such that it is not abridged by
their existence. It is undeniable that he has to deal
with a problem which is not completely solved. 1
1 !For a criticism of Edwards on this topic, see the observations of
Prof. Allenj Jonathan Udwards, Period III., Ch. V-
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
was practically not confused or disturbed by
j seeming inconsistency between certain aspects
his theology, in the strict sense of this term, and
;heistic creed and the anthropology associated
ih it.
[n another polemical treatise — that on Original
l, which did not see the light until after his
ith, Edwards confronts the Arminian authors
reference to the strongest point in their conten-
n, to wit : that the Calvinistic doctrine of the
ponsibility of the posterity of Adam for his sin,
dch is not their act, and that they are truly
iged to be sinful from the start, is untenable.
! plunges into the thick of the conflict on the
L-time subject of the spread and dominion of
>ral evil in the race of mankind. He sought to
iarm the opponents of orthodox doctrine, and
lift the veil on the mystery of sin — the one
'stery, as Coleridge said, which makes all other
ngs clear. He discards everything in the cur-
it beliefs which savors of legal fiction, and seeks
found the responsibility of the individual on a
il spiritual continuity of the race, a view which
seeks to fortify by a disquisition on the mean-
l of personal identity and of sameness of sub-
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 43
stance, which he makes equivalent to constantly-
repeated acts of creation. It is evident that
Locke's curious chapter on " Identity and Diver-
sity" put Edwards on the track on which he
advanced to his novel opinion. But here like-
wise the metaphysical doctrine was worked out
in an original way, and the opinions in theology
were at absolute variance with the tenets of Locke.
Edwards undertakes in his own way to establish
Augustine's proposition of an act of the race. It
is strictly true ? he asserts, that all participated in
the act by which " the species first rebelled against
God." x We are condemned not for another's evil
choice, but for our own — for real participation in
that act by which "the species first rebelled against
God." The continuance of the individuals of the
race and of sin in them is affirmed to be as truly
a fact as the sameness of substance in the indi-
vidual. The individuals sprung from the first man
are the continuation of Adam. There is no ques-
tion as to the sincerity of Edwards in this bold
speculation.
Edwards denies the opinion that God is the
author of sin by any positive act introducing it
in the race. His agency in the case of the first
Edwards's Works, etc , Dwight'a Ed., Vol. II., p. 543.
: REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
a, as in every other, did not go beyond the with-
uwal of the helps of grace, in consequence of
hich his native propensities are left to operate
ithout the effectual help of these aids. His
gument on this subject he fortifies by copious
ferences to sayings and events recorded in the
sriptures. 1 He seeks to illustrate his meaning by
Le simile of the Sun in relation to darkness and
>ld, which it does not cause because these follow
f allibly on the withdrawal of its beams. When
n occurs God " wills it to occur, considering all
3 consequences." God brings to pass the fact of
n in a way to make it obvious that He is not the
Dsitive cause and real source of it. 2 He sanc-
ons the usual Calvinistic idea of " the secret and
wealed will of God, and their diversity from one
lother." His reasoning as to the negation of
:>sitive divine agency in the existence of moral
ril is parallel with that of Aquinas and his school.
, comes to pass by the disposal of God, not by His
:>sitive exertion. Most men will not hesitate to
rev that he who should extinguish the heat and
2;ht of the sun may properly be styled the author
id cause of the night and cold.
The treatise of Edwards on " Keligious Affec-
« Dwight's Ed., II., 250. 2 Ibid., p. 263.
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 45
tions " presents the author's ideal of religious ex-
perience. This book was occasioned by his per-
ception of the abuses which attended the " Great
Revival," especially the morbid enthusiasm and
various extravagances that marred its beneficent
influence. One design was to sift the converts
and to distinguish between sound religious feel-
ings and such as are unhealthy and spurious.
His analysis was sometimes pushed to an extreme
that afterwards engendered in the churches a good
deal of self -distrust, thus depriving not a few
Christian believers of the Assurance which the
Eeformers counted a special blessing brought in
by the Protestant teaching. Nevertheless, this
treatise comprises many of the author's best
thoughts on the subject expressed in the title. It
opens to view the mystical element in Edwards,
the elements of insight and intuition in his re-
ligious thoughts. A masterly work of Edwards
is that on the Nature of True Virtue, a posthu-
mous publication. He sets forth the nature of
moral goodness in the concrete. This he finds to
be Benevolence, or love to intelligent being. It
is love to the entire society of intelligent beings
according to their rank, or, to use his phrase, the
" amount of being " that belongs to them. It is
46 KEMAEKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
supreme love to God, limited as regards inferior
beings. Ethics and religion are thus inseparably
associated. This all-embracing Benevolence— love
to " being in general " — is the fountain and es-
sence of all specific virtues deserving of the name.
He who exercises this Love delights in it when
perceived in others. This delight excites a special
affection for them — the love of complacency.
This u relish " is an experience possible only to the
actually virtuous. 1 But there is a rectitude — a fit-
ness of Benevolence to the soul and the nature of
things. The perception of it is a ground of obli-
gation, the basis of conscience, in all, even in such
as discern not the spiritual beauty of Benevolence
and are incapable of it. This essay of Edwards
calls out from the younger Fichte the warmest
eulogy. This he concludes with the words : " So
has this solitary thinker of North America risen
to the deepest and loftiest ground which can un-
derlie the principle of morals " — with more in the
same vein. 2
In another posthumous essay, Edwards con-
siders "God's Last End in Creation." The dis-
» The priority of benevolence to complacency in the ideal of Virtue
was the first and the last teaching of Edwards, although in the interval
for a while he held to the reverse opinion.
2 System d. Mhik., Vol. I., p. 69.
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 47
cussion includes an answer to the question, " why
God called the universe into being." He rejects
every idea of need, insufficiency, from the possi-
bility of being a motive in the mind of a Being
who is declared to be infinitely happy. He is not
dependent on the creature for the infinitesimal
part of His bliss. Pantheism is thus ruled out
from the list of possible solutions of the problem.
God estimates the sum of His own excellence at its
real worth. His supreme regard for His own
glory, or His own glorious perfection, does not
partake in the least of selfishness. The disposi-
tion to communicate his own fulness of good in-
heres in Him and incites Him to create the world.
His delight in creatures is delight in what ema-
nates from Himself. It is equivalent to a delight
in Himself. His love to creatures is love to Him
self, u because God's being, as it were, compre-
hends all." This would seem to subtract some-
thing from the strict reality of creation. This
difficulty is not dealt with. Some aid is afforded
in this direction by the thesis that for the elect
part of mankind, it is that the creation is given its
being. The absolute and perfectly sincere dis-
owning of Pantheism lacks an entirely lucid and
logically complete maintenance.
48 BEMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
Edwards left among his manuscripts a collec-
tion of Papers, not recast or revised for publica-
tion, which bear the title, which was attached
later, of "Miscellaneous Observations." They are
on topics of theology and, some of them in partic-
ular, are striking proofs of his genius as a theolog-
ical thinker. One of them treats of the Atone-
ment, or "The Satisfaction of Christ." He starts .
with the admission that if Repentance could be
answerable to the guilt of sin, it might be re-
ceived by God as an adequate compensation, but
affirms it is not possible. The qualifications of
Christ for the function of a Mediator, or for
acceptable Intercession, are set forth. Christ
enters fulhf into the mind of the offended party
and the distress of the offender. His sympathy
with each is complete. He identifies Himself in
feeling with each: with God's spiritual condem-
nation of the sinful man, while He is, at the same
time, fully alive to man's criminality and forlorn
situation. His prayer in man's behalf is in an
absolute sense intelligent The substitution of
Christ is in his own heart primarily. Edwards
shows his independence and his depth in pro-
pounding the statements that this two-fold feel-
ing of Christ is perfected through His own experi-
REMAKES ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 49
ence, including suffering and death, and that in
and through death and the spiritual perceptions
thus developed, there was in Him, although sin-
less, an increase of holiness, reaching absolute
perfection. He gave proof of his thorough ap-
proval of the righteousness of the divine law
and of the penalty for the remission of which
he prayed.
In his letter to the Trustees of Princeton Col-
lege, before he consented to accept the presidency,
Edwards speaks of being at work on a theological
production peculiar in its plan. 1 Although unfin-
ished at his death, it was published. The subject
is "Redemption," and it professes to contain a
new View of Church History. In its conception
it is not unlike Augustine's " City of God." The
design illustrates the breadth of his mind, for it
is nothing less than an essay on the philosophy of
History, an interpretation of the course of Divine
Providence. Although the compass of the au-
thor's learning fell short of the adequate realiza-
tion of his idea, and so it would have been had
he lived to do his best, it is yet a truly suggestive
and an instructive handling of the capacious
1 This letter is interesting for its frank expressions respecting himself.
See Appendix, Note II.
50 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
theme. The book is a worthy monument of
the variety of his powers.
Of the writings of Edwards which, in modern
days, are offensive to readers, not a few are those
which pertain to the character and destiny of the
class included under the head of the unregener-
ate, and to the way in which they are said to be
regarded by God. The first comment to be made
on the specially obnoxious passages is that the Es-
chatology of Edwards is essentially identical with
that of the symbols of the Protestant churches of
the period, the Socinians excepted — e. g., with the
Westminster Confession — and it is not essentially
diverse from the creed of the followers of Augus-
tine in the preceding centuries. When Edwards
says of infants that, while seeming innocent to us,
" they are in God's sight young vipers," he casts
into a figure of speech a dogma not dissonant
from the creeds referred to — however distasteful
both dogma and figure may be. The abhorrence
with which the wicked are said to be regarded
by the Divine Lawgiver and Judge is expressed
in terms as intense as the English vocabulary fur-
nishes, and through similes of equal severity. In
the Enfield Sermon, it is said that God " ab-
hors them and is dreadfully provoked," and that
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 51
even now they are in His hand, held over the fire,
as one holds a loathsome insect. The wicked are
"Useful in their destruction only": so runs the
title of one of his sermons. Their penal sufferings
hereafter were held by him, in agreement with
organized churches generally, to be an allotment
of retributive justice, which is considered an attri-
bute of God, worthy of approval and fitted to excite
feelings of satisfaction in the beholder. Hence
the saints above, seeing the inflictions on the con-
demned, will " make heaven ring with the praises
of God's justice towards the wicked and his grace
towards the saints," who are conscious that they
deserve the same "penalty," from which they
have been delivered.
It is a pity that so many of the class which New-
man calls the " merely literary " appear to know
nothing of Edwards save from his Enfield ser-
mon on the torments to be expected by the wicked
hereafter. 1 His sermons generally were in a dif-
ferent style. They were addressed to the under-
1 This Sermon was first prepared for his own people at Northamp-
ton in June, 1741, and preached at Enfield in the following month. It
was then not entirely written out. In print it was about three times as
long as it is in the MS. Other MSS. of Edwards show how much
they were expanded in delivery or in printing. I owe these facts to the
careful examination of Professor Dexter. See his publication. The
Manuscripts of Jonathan Edwards (1901), pp. 6, 7.
52 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
standing of his hearers. It was his method occa-
sionally in popular addresses and appeals, to con-
fine the attention to one side of the shield. He
could discourse on the mercy of God and the joys
of heaven with equal force and effect. The Prot-
estant pulpit was slow to discard that medieval
habit of depicting the terrors of the law of which
the Inferno of Dante furnishes a classic example.
But the Inferno, we may be told, was a product
of the imagination. So are the offensive epithets
and figures in Edwards. But Dante, it is added,
did not stand in the pulpit ; he was a poet. True,
and, himself a poet, he did not hesitate to leave
Virgil, from whom he professes to have derived
his "beautiful style," 1 in hell — in the outer circle,
to be sure. 2 His poem, moreover, has for its doc-
trinal basis the dogmatic teaching of the " Doctor
Angelicus," Thomas Aquinas.
It must not be assumed that Edwards stood
alone in a mode of teaching which was judged
to be wholesome and necessary to excite alarm
and impel to repentance. This fact is exempli-
fied in the case of Jeremy Taylor, to whom no one
thinks of imputing cruelty of feeling. His dis-
courses are not free from passages describing the
1 Inferno^ c. i., 85-88. 2 Doomed with unbaptized
infants to sorrow, if not to torment. Ibid.y c. iv., 25 seq.
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 53
torments of the lost which are almost on a level
with those in Edwards that are so bitterly de-
nounced. It is not the only, but it is the principal,
source of regret that passages of this class in Ed-
wards, especially in certain revival addresses from
the pulpit, should not be connected with remarks
in which the love of God, co-existing with His
abhorrence of evil, is spoken of, and with illus-
trations of this love from the Scriptures. The
words of Jesus on the spirit of fatherliness in
God, as expressed in the saying, He "is kind to
the evil and unthankful," and in the parable of
the Prodigal Son, had they been even alluded
to, might have prevented, certainly in part, the
seeming ascription of vindictiveness and of un-
qualified anger to the Creator and Judge. It
would be a signal injustice, however, to impute to
Edwards the absence of a profound faith in the love
of God. The various heartfelt expressions on the
duty of forbearance and of forgiveness, contained
in the record of his early " resolutions " and writ-
ten reflections, reveal the depth of this faith. The
treatise on the Nature of Virtue, wherein a funda-
mental principle is that the character of God
at the core consists in love to all intelligent beings,
whether morally good or morally evil, shows that
54 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
its author — perhaps with special depth of convic-
tion in the closing period of life — recognized the
all-comprehending Benevolence of God towards
mankind, whatever their guilt. 1 Moreover, despite
the defective Anthropology of the prince of Amer-
ican theologians, he was one of the sources and
promoters of the humanitarian movement in which
Channing was so prominent a leader, for he was
inspired with this temper in no small degree by
Hopkins, the foremost pupil and disciple of Ed-
wards, who was the pastor of Channing, and who
in his youth had made disinterested Benevolence
a central article in his system, being himself a
pioneer in the public condemnation of the slave-
trade, of which Newport, the place of his resi-
dence, was one of the marts.
The reader of this volume may be referred to
the notice, at the close of the Preface, of the
Essay of Edwards on the Trinity. Its general
character is such as it is natural to expect from
an author like Edwards, with his absorbing de-
votion both to metaphysics and Biblical study.
It is a discussion in the same category as a class
of philosophical expositions and arguments on
* His book on Charity is full of teaching to this effect.
EEMAEKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 55
this theme, of which Augustine was a precursor,
that are found in the scholastic literature and
down to the date of recent German theologians. 1
The student of theology who would inform him-
self respecting this section of Doctrinal History-
may resort to the works in this branch, and to
Corner's work on Systematic Theology.
The Essay of Edwards is so careful in its state-
ments and so lucid in style that a recapitulation of
its contents would have to be in the main a repe-
tition. The author himself presents as follows, a
brief summary of the purport of his dissertation.
"This I suppose to be that Blessed Trinity
that we Kead of in the Holy Scriptures. The
Father is the Deity subsisting in the Prime, un-
originated and most absolute manner. The Son is
the Deity subsisting in act, or the divine essence
generated by God's understanding, or having an
Idea of himself and subsisting in that Idea. The
Holy Ghost is the Deity subsisting in act, or the
divine essence flowing out and Breathed forth in
God's Infinite love and delight in himself. I be-
lieve the whole divine essence does Truly and dis-
tinctly subsist both in the divine idea and divine
Love, and that they are properly distinct persons."
1 On Augustine's views, see Appendix, Note III.
56 EEMAKKS ON EDWAKDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
Thus, according to Edwards, neither of the
divine persons is God without each of the other
two. Each person exists in and with each of the
others.
Without critically examining the theory thus
sketched by Edwards, I think that it must be
allowed to include what may not improperly be
styled tri-personality, with the avoidance of tri-
theism.
Edwards agrees with Nicene orthodoxy in
teaching the priority of the Father along with
co-equality of the persons in divine attributes. In
the Divine oeconomy, the work of redemption
and administration, the priority of the Father con-
tinues.
On the Holy Spirit, and the relations of the
Holy Spirit in the immanent trinity and in re-
demption, Edwards discourses at length in the
posthumous treatise on Grace. 1
Edwards maintains that if man had as perfect
an idea of his thoughts, mental acts — in short, all
his mental states, — as God has, it would be true
of man that one is two. This Idea of God is the
1 This was first printed in 1865. A clear exposition of the theory of
Edwards may be read in Professor Park's Second Article in the Bibli-
otheca Sacra, Vol. XXXVIII., p. 342, seq., and — especially on the
topic of the Holy Spirit, in the First Article, p. 157, seq.
REMAKES ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 57
Xoyos of the Scriptures. The never ceasing of
God, the overflowing of his essence, in Love is
the arf&irq of the Scriptures. An objection is met
by the contention that the Love of God is a per-
son, since His Love is unceasingly active and com-
prehends in itself the understanding and will of
the Father and the Son.
Edwards abjures the intent to meet all the ob-
jections that may be made to the doctrine which
he has undertaken to set forth, or to solve "puz-
zling doubts and questions " that may be raised.
" I do not pretend," he says, " to explain the Trin-
ity so as to render it no longer a mystery. . . .
I think it to be the highest and deepest of all
divine mysteries still, notwithstanding anything I
have said or conceived." At the same time he
thinks that progress in knowledge on this subject
is not to be excluded, and that if new difficulties
and queries are started by any such advance, the
same is the case when new light is gained by in-
vestigation of the objects in nature which science
seeks to understand.
As the effect of the influence of Edwards and
of his writings there arose a type and school of
theology which at the outset received the name of
58 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
New Divinity, to distinguish it from the tradi-
tional type of Calvinism into which were intro-
duced certain modifications. The new system was
styled New England Theology, since New Eng-
land was the place of its origin and the place
where it was developed in diversified forms by
its expounders and advocates. The creed of these
was, to a considerable extent, moulded by Ed-
wards, and his influence affected, beyond the spe-
cial catalogue of such teachers, the preaching and
tone of thought of a wider circle.
The choir-leaders of the New England school
were disciples, but not servile disciples, of Ed-
wards. They built on foundations which he had
laid. His writings were too fruitful of suggestion
to secure unity of opinion among his followers.
One principal aim continued to be to put an end
to the apparent conflict between human depend-
ence and personal responsibility. So to formulate
Calvinism as to do away with popular objections
and to frame a system better adapted to the pulpit
was a concurrent aim. The treatise on the Will,
on one hand, furnished the premises for a class of
inferences on the nature and origin of sin and of
conversion. On the other hand, what Edwards
had taught on the necessity of spiritual light im
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 59
parted directly from God, led a school of divines
to accordant corollaries relative to the new life
and spiritual experience.
The question of the theodicy — How is evil, es-
pecially moral evil, consistent with infinite power
and love in the Deity ? — was discussed in writings
of Bellamy and other adherents of the " New Di-
vinity," as it was then called. Samuel Hopkins,
whom President Stiles couples, as a "great rea-
soner," with President Edwards, was graduated at
Yale in 1741. He went to Northampton to study
for the ministry with Edwards. From his doc-
trine of the extension of the reign of law over
choices and volitions, Hopkins did not shrink from
the distinct enunciation that the acts of the will
are to be referred to divine efficiency. This thesis
was adopted by Nathaniel Emmons, a graduate of
Yale in 1767. Emmons, when his premises were
assumed, reached his conclusions by an inevitable
march of logic. Moreover, Hopkins propounded
the doctrine of disinterested love which he de-
duced from the treatise of Edwards on the Nat-
ure of Virtue, — the doctrine, namely, of the obli-
gations to love self, not as one's own self, but only
as a fraction of strictly limited value in the sum
total of rational beings, — what Edwards had
60 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
termed " being in general." The duty, as an ele-
ment of thorough repentance, of unconditional
resignation to the just penalty of sin, should it be
the will of God to inflict it, was an inference.
This was inculcated not merely as a theoretic
dogma, but even as a practical demand to be ad-
dressed by the Christian pastor to the individual
seeking a place in the kingdom of God. The
same idea is in Mystics of earlier days, for exam-
ple in the little book, the " Deutsche Theologie,"
so highly prized by Luther.
Destitute altogether of the graces of style and
of speech required to interest an audience, despite
what was thought a harsh* tenet, Hopkins was
revered by all for the depth of his piety, and the
exalted purity and benevolence of his character.
One of his hearers in his parish at Newport, as
already stated, was a youth destined for a dis-
tinguished career, — William Ellery Channing.
Channing had not a little intercourse with the
venerable pastor, the effect of which was per-
manent. "I was attached to Dr. Hopkins," writes
Channing, " chiefly by his theory of disinterested
love." The intrepid minister lifted his voice
against the African slave-trade. He published in
1776 an earnest appeal to his countrymen to eman-
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 61
cipate their slaves. Thus, Jonathan Edwards
was an indirect agent in inspiring with zeal in
the cause of humanity the leading founder of
New England Unitarianism.
Emmons, whose name has been mentioned, on
most points was in accord with Hopkins. Yet
he was not without peculiarities of opinion which
spread mainly through the fifty-seven pupils
whom he trained in his family for the ministry.
He was an active pastor for fifty-four years, and
lived to the age of ninety-five.
The younger Edwards, if he did not rise to the
level of his father as an original thinker, was a
keen logician. He was the one conspicuous repre-
sentative of the New Divinity who was not gradu-
ated at Yale, his father having been recently
President at Princeton. But he studied for the
ministry with Bellamy, and with the school of
theologians trained at Yale, followers of his
father, he was, by birth and life-long association,
closely affiliated. To him New England the-
ology was indebted for its governmental view of
the Atonement, which had been anticipated in the
main by the great Arminian jurist, Hugo Grotius.
Thereby the end and aim of the sacrifice on the
cross were so extended as to exclude the objec-
62 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
tion that it was a provision meant for only an
elect portion of the race. Thus, although divine
sovereignty was proclaimed with an almost un-
exampled emphasis, no exception could be taken
to the compass of divine love as related specifically
to the mission and death of Christ.
The opening of the century which has lately
reached its end found in the presidential seat at
Yale, and in its Chapel pulpit as Professor of
Divinity, the grandson of President Edwards, the
first President Dwight. An instance of his power
in the pulpit was the effect of his sermons two
years after his accession to the presidency, on the
Nature and Danger of Infidel Philosophy, which
turned the tide against the imported French Deism,
then prevalent in College. He was a man whose
catholic temper and intellectual habit caused him
to shun one-sided formulas in theology and to
avoid extreme statements in homiletic discourse.
The system of President Dwight, moreover, which
was presented in a consecutive series of sermons
in the College pulpit, steered clear of the meta.
physical dryness prevalent in the preaching of the
day. They were enlivened by a rhetorical quality
which met an increasing popular demand. In his
youth he had been a tutor in College. In this
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 63
office, along with a contemporary tutor who also
became a distinguished Congregationalist divine,
Joseph Buckminster, he had done much to foster
a literary taste in the institution. It was the first
stage in the grafting of the Renaissance culture
on the Puritan type of education. Johnson, Ad-
dison and other writers of that epoch were read
with delight. Through Dwight's sermons, the
"new divinity," shorn of later shibboleths and
clad in a comely dress, was widely diffused both
in this country and in Great Britain. It was ac-
ceptable to many, as a type of modern Calvinism
which, while it made no war upon the West-
minster symbols, deviated from them in certain
definitions of doctrine.
Numerous editions of Dwight's system were
published in Scotland and in England. Down to
a time not far back, not a few pilgrims from
these countries, some of them preachers of high
repute, who had learned theology from the writ-
ings of Dwight, were led to visit New Haven and
the grave of their revered teacher. Edwards
himself did not cease to be read in Great Britain.
He stamped his impress, on the two principal the-
ologians in the early part of the last century,
Andrew Fuller and Thomas Chalmers, of whom
64 REMAEKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
mention has been made. Among the American
theologians who sat at the feet of Dwight was
James Murdock of the Class of 1797. An accu-
rate and erudite scholar, Dr. Murdock filled for a
number of years the chair of Ecclesiastical His-
tory at Andover. He deserves special honor for
the work done by him in fostering this depart-
ment of learning.
Another pupil of Dwight, and by this channel
linked to Edwards, was Lyman Beecher. He
lived to attain to eminence in the pulpit, besides
being a professor of Theology. The fame of his
children should not be suffered to eclipse the dis-
tinction of the father. On the list of the Yale
Class of 1790 is the name of a theologian
whose influence in promoting Biblical studies in
America is unrivalled. I refer to Moses Stuart,
first a tutor and a pastor in New Haven, and
then for many years a professor at Andover.
There his stimulating instruction in the class-
room excited the enthusiasm of his pupils, while
his numerous writings gave him distinction with
scholars abroad as well as at home.
After the death of Dr. Dwight, one of his cher-
ished designs was carried out. The Yale Divin-
ity School was established by the Corporation.
EEMAKKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 65
The chair of " Didactic " or Dogmatic Theology
in the new department was filled by the appoint-
ment of one who did more than any other to give
it celebrity, Dr. Nathaniel W. Taylor, who re-
mained in office until his death, in 1858. He had
been a beloved pupil of Dr. Dwight. His influ-
ence, externally not so wide-spread as that of his
instructor, was more radical in its effect on theo-
logical opinion. He was a most inspiring teacher.
As a metaphysician, Dr. Taylor ranks higher than
any other leader of the New England school
after the elder Edwards. With an acuteness and
vigor which commanded universal respect, he com-
bined an eloquence rarely to be met with either
in the lecture-room or the pulpit. At his side
stood his colleagues, Dr. Eleazer T. Fitch, like-
wise a master in the field of metaphysical theol-
ogy, and, in his prime, a profound as well as at-
tractive preacher, the successor of President
Dwight in the College pulpit, and Dr. Chauncey
A. Goodrich, who for a good while was the chief
conductor of the Christian Spectator, the review in
which many of the expositions of the " New Haven
Divinity," as it was then called, were given to the
public. Associated in the Faculty with the trio
just named — in his distinctive traits a complement
66 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
to them — was a scholar, and a ripe and good one,
Josiah W. Gibbs, cautious and candid, and deeply
learned in linguistic and biblical science.
It was the life-long purpose of Dr. Taylor to
eliminate from the Edwardsean theology remain-
ing elements which he believed to be incompatible
with a fair view of human responsibility, the
truth which from the first it undertook to vindi-
cate. He did not mean to subtract from the pre-
vailing tenets anything that is really involved in
the sense of dependence at the basis of piety, and
as such ever cherished by Calvinism with sedulous
care. His aim was so to rectify the conception of
the liberty of the will as to make room for a
theodicy that should leave untouched the free and
responsible nature of man and the moral attributes
of God, not less than His omnipotence. Edwards
had made prominent his idea of the certainty of the
actual determination of the will as in each case the
consequence of the antecedent motives. Dr. Tay-
lor followed him far, but linked to this proposi-
tion the concomitant assertion of the power of
contrary choice. He propounded the doctrine of
" Certainty with power to the contrary," as a sum-
mary statement — a ph/rase which, as he told the
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 67
present writer, he adopted, as descriptive of his
opinion, from a passage which he met with in
Father Paul Sarpi's History of the Council of
Trent, where it is ascribed to one of the partici-
pators in the conciliar debate concerning the
freedom of the will. Thus Dr. Taylor coincided
with Edwards in attributing to motives a certain
causal relation, but it was & peculiar species of
causation, giving certainty but not necessity.
This theory of the will was adopted in the so-
called " New-School " New England theology.
A younger contemporary of Dr. Taylor, a very
acute instructor in theology, with a singular
power of accurate and felicitous statement, was
Professor Edwards A. Park, a devoted student of
Edwards and an accomplished writer on the New
England Theology. He, too, held to the " power
of contrary choice," and conceived this to be a
legitimate interpretation of Edwards. This is not
the time or the place to weigh the merits of Dr.
Taylor's system, only a portion of which has ever
appeared in print. As to the manifest subtlety
and intellectual grasp it exhibited, there could be
but one opinion. 1
1 Among the numerous descendants of Edwards, one of the most
distinguished and one of the most competent to discuss his character-
68 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
From the time of the elder Edwards, the school
which he originated turned its attention more and
more to subjects embraced under the term an-
thropology. The origin of sin, its nature, why it
should be permitted to exist under the divine ad-
ministration, the connection of human agency with
divine agency in conversion, and kindred topics,
were uppermost. Even in the heat of the Uni-
tarian controversy, this did not cease to be the
case. Latin theology in its characteristic drift, in
contrast with the favorite themes of ancient Greek
speculation, was still in the foreground. But be-
fore many decades had passed in the century just
brought to an end, there were marked signs of a
change in the point of view.
Theology, in the etymological sense of the term,
began to draw to itself a renewed and increasing
attention. In this movement the master-spirit in
England was Coleridge. Under the stimulus
emanating from him, the apologetics of the previous
century began to be superseded by a more spirit-
ual method of defending the truths of natural and
revealed religion. The time had come when Dr.
Johnson's satirical remark that the four evangel-
istics as a man and a writer, is the late President Theodore D. Woolsey.
For a notice of an address by him, see Appendix, Note IV,
KEMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 69
ists were tried weekly in the pulpits of England
for forgery, was ceasing to be applicable. The
value of the proof which Christianity carries in
itself had begun to be more justly discerned.
Thought and investigation were directed more
and more to the Incarnation of Christ, to His per-
son, life and character. A few of the most gifted
pupils of Dr. Taylor became deeply interested in
writings of Coleridge, which were introduced into
this country by President Marsh, of the Univer-
sity of Vermont. A new vista was opened before
them. Ratiocination began to lose its charm, the
authority of logic to give place to that of intui-
tion. One of the pupils of Dr. Taylor responded
with especial sympathy to the new influence.
The time has gone by when opinion was divided
on the question whether Horace Bushnell was a
visionary, or a man of genius with a spiritual out-
fit rarely to be found in students and teachers of
religion. There was in him, moreover, as all who
knew him well were aware, a vein of common
sense, which was not seldom manifest in the
homely vigor of his public and private utterances.
Dr. Bushnell was graduated at Yale in 1827. It
was not until 1831, while he was tutor in college,
that he reached the turning point in his religious
70 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
convictions and experience. At that time, it is
right to remember, Dr. Taylor was still at the
height of his power, not only in the theological
class-room, but as a preacher both in college and
in the churches elsewhere. He was a wise coun-
sellor to undergraduate students in the matter of
personal religion. It was an epoch when the
entire institution was pervaded by a remarkable
attentiveness to the Gospel.
The spirit of honesty and independence, native
qualities of Bushnell, were not discouraged, but
were fostered, by the example, as well as by fa-
miliar sayings, of Taylor. But from the outset
of his ministry, Bushnell lifted the anchor and
steered his own way. In the first of his printed
works, the book on " Christian Nurture," he struck
out a new path. In contrast with a dependence
on occasional revivals as a means of building up
the churches and keeping alive the spirit of de-
votion, he exalted the family as the heaven-
appointed birthplace of piety in its youngest mem-
bers, and family nurture as the great instrument
of its growth. The same ardor which was sig-
nally manifest in his subsequent writings, perhaps
tempted him now and then to overstatement, and
more often to unguarded declarations which pro-
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 71
voted attack and called for explanation. But he
was able to appeal from contemporary criticism to
the authority of the Puritanism of an older date,
and by the freshness and reasonableness of his
teaching to make an immediate and lasting im-
pression on the churches. The work on " Nature
and the Supernatural," perhaps, on the whole, the
best of his writings, was the product of a seed
falling into his fertile mind from a definition in
Coleridge's " Aids to Reflection." The final chap-
ter on the character of Jesus, whether or not it
justified to the full extent the inference which he
drew from the premises, is one of the most im-
pressive portraitures of the character of Christ
which the plentiful literature on this subject in
the latter days has furnished.
Later, in a series of writings, Dr. Bushnell set
forth with characteristic frankness and warmth
his thoughts respecting the central topics of the
Trinity and the Atonement. At the outset he
broached a view respecting language which in-
volved as an inference the necessary vagueness
and inadequacy of all abstract terms ; a theory
equivalent in substance to the idea of Occam and
the mediaeval Nominalists who followed him.
The conclusion drawn was the denial of the possi-
72 REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
bility of scientific theology, and of mental philoso-
phy as well. Theology and philosophy, being in
the same boat, must sink or swim together. Un-
warranted as was the exclusion of studies not
having to do immediately with things material
from the category of sciences, Bushnell had at
heart a distinction which is valid and of practical
worth. He insisted justly on the supreme im-
portance which the conception of personality has
in the contents of Christianity. In this feature of
his teaching he might have cited Edwards, who
sets what he terms "notional knowledge" in con-
trast with the living perceptions that flash on the
soul by an illumination within. The awakening,
suggestive power of the writings of Bushnell has
been recognized everywhere by candid readers.
They propounded opinions considerably at vari-
ance with cherished beliefs. Yet no one could
doubt the author's religous earnestness.
Bushnell took up his pen, when from time to
time he was inwardly moved to communicate new
light that his restless intellectual activity kindled
within him. He was not habituated to scholarly
research. His continued reading had the effect
gradually to modify earlier conclusions. Then he
felt the impulse to recast them. No passion for
REMARKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY 73
consistency was allowed to qualify the frankness
of his expressions. On the subject of the Trinity,
in his earlier writings there was a near approach
to the Sabellian conception, suggested to him by
a translation by Professor Stuart from Schleier-
macher. In his mature, final exposition of the
Trinity, he approximated, as he avowed, to the
ancient, orthodox conception of Athanasius and
the Nicene Creed. His thought thus, uncon-
sciously, took the direction of the opinion, not
then published, of Edwards. In his article in
" The New Englander " on the Trinity as a Prot-
estant truth, he reverted with esteem to Athana-
sius, and, in speaking of God as eternally " three-
ing Himself," he placed himself on ground akin
to that of Edwards, whose unpublished essay he
was anxious to have given to the public. On the
Atonement, as a supplement to his inculcation of
what is sometimes called the " Moral View," he
declared his conviction that a certain propitiatory
element, which is imbedded in different forms in
the creeds and liturgies of the Church from the
outset, is not without a real basis, and he sought
an explication of it in a peculiar form of a piece
with the patripassionist drift of his theology — a
form, which he deemed more satisfactory than the
t KEMAKKS ON EDWARDS AND HIS THEOLOGY
'aditional modes of interpreting it. We may des-
piate these changes as retractations — which is
le title Augustine gave to the work in which, in
is "Reconsiderations" — for this, and not "Re-
■actations," is the meaning of the title — we find
not inconsiderable amount of retrogression from
is earlier teaching.
The reader will gather from the foregoing com-
Lents that Bushnell, notwithstanding a sharp re-
ugnance to certain features of the contemporary
Tew England divinity, having a genetic connec-
on with Edwards, Bushnell had himself more
oints of affiliation with its founder than he was
imself fully aware.
The originality and felicity of presentation
r hich mark the sermons of Bushnell have won
>r them numerous appreciative readers in Eng-
md as well as in America. If admiration is not
lisplaced when bestowed on one who unites the
btributes of the poet and the philosopher, it will
ot fail to be evoked by the character and genius
E Horace Bushnell.
PAET II
AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWAEDS ON
THE TEINITY
PART II
AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS ON
THE TRINITY 1
Tis common when speaking of the Divine hap-
piness to say that God is Infinitely Happy in the
Enjoyment of himself, in Perfectly beholding &
Infinitely loving, & Rejoicing in, his own Es-
sence & Perfections, and accordingly it must be
supposed that God Perpetually and Eternally has
a most Perfect Idea of himself, as it were an exact
Image and Representation of himself ever before
him and in actual view, & from hence arises a
most pure and Perfect act or energy in the God-
1 The Essay is printed from a careful transcription of the original.
It is given in the unrevised form in which it was left by the author,
with no attempt to mend the orthography or the structure of the sen-
tences. The alterations are few and trifling in their nature, being de-
signed exclusively to remove obscurities as to the meaning which
might perplex the reader. I have thought it better to err by too
slight changes than in the opposite direction. The following is a list
of the Author's abbreviations : Chh. = church, or churches; F. =
Father; G. =God; G.H. = Ghost; Gosp. = Gospel; H.G. = Holy
Ghost ; Xi. = Lord ; L. J. X. = Lord Jesus Christ ; So. = Son ; Sp. =
Spirit, or Spirits; SS. = Scriptures (or Scripture); X. = Christ j
Xtians. = Christians.
77
78 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OP EDWARDS
head, which is the divine Love, Complacence and
Joy.
Tho we cannot concieve of the manner of the
divine understanding, yet if it be understanding
or any thing that can be any way signified by that
word of ours, it is by Idea. Tho the divine nature
be vastly different from that of created spirits, yet
our souls are made in the Image of God, we have
understanding & will, Idea & Love as God
hath, and the difference is only in the Perfection
of degree and manner. The Perfection of the
manner will Indeed Infer this that there is no dis-
tinction to be made in God between Power or
habit and act, & with Respect to Gods understand-
ing that there are no such distinctions to be ad-
mitted as in ours between Perception or Idea,
and Reasoning & Judgment, (excepting what the
will has to do in Judgment), but that the whole of
the divine understanding or wisdom consists in the
meer Perception or unvaried Presence of his Infi-
nitely Perfect Idea., & with Respect to the other
faculty as it is in God there are no distinctions to
be admitted of faculty, habit, and act, between
will, Inclination, & love, But that it is all one
simple act. But the divine Perfection will not In-
fer [i. e., imply] that his understanding is not by
ON THE TRINITY 79
Idea and that there is not Indeed such a thing as
Inclination & Love in God. 1
[That in John God is Love shews that
there are more persons than one in the deity, for it
shews Love to be essential & necessary to the deity
so that his nature consists in it, & this supposes that
there is an Eternal & necessary object, because aU
Love respects another that is the beloved. By Love
here the Apostle certainly means something beside
that which is commonly called self-love : that is
very improperly called Love & is a thing of an ex-
ceeding diverse nature from the affection or virtue
of Love the Apostle is speaking of.]
The sum of the divine understanding and wis-
dom consists in his having a Perfect Idea of him-
self, he being Indeed the all : the all-comprehend-
ing being, — he that is, and there is none else. So
the sum of his Inclination, Love, & Joy is his love
to & delight in himself. Gods Love to himself, &
complacency & delight in himself, — they are not to
be distinguished, they are the very same thing in
God ; which will easily be allowed, Love in man
being scarcely distinguishable from the Compla-
cence he has in any Idea : if there be any differ-
ence it is meerly modal, & circumstantial.
1 The next paragraph is inserted at a later date.
80 AN UlSfPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS
The knowledge or view which God has of him-
self must necessarily be concieved to be some
thing distinct from his meer direct existence.
There must be something that answers to our Re-
flection. The Reflection as we Reflect on our own
minds carries some thing of Imperfection in it.
However, if God beholds himself so as thence to
have delight & Joy in himself he must become his
own Object. There must be a duplicity. There
is God and the Idea of God, if it be Proper to call
a conception of that that is Purely spiritual an
Idea.
And I do suppose the deity to be truly &
Properly Repeated by Gods thus having an Idea
of himself &> that this Idea of God is truly God, 1
to all Intents and Purposes, & that by this
means the Godhead is Really Generated and Re-
peated.
1. Gods Idea of himself is absolutely Perfect
and therefore is an express and perfect Image of
him, exactly like him in every Respect ; there is
nothing in the Pattern but what is in the Repre-
sentation, — substance, life, power nor any thing
else, & that in a most absolute Perfection of simil-
i Over the last three words is written, as an alternate reading, " is a
substantial Idea and haa the very essence of God."
ON THE TRINITY 81
itude, otherwise it is not a Perfect Idea. But
that which is the express, Perfect Image of God
& in every respect like him is G. to all Intents &
Purposes, because there is nothing wanting : there
is nothing in the deity that Renders it the Deity
but what has some thing exactly answering it in
this Image, which will therefore also Eender that
the Deity. *
2. But this will more clearly appear if we con-
sider the nature of spiritual Ideas or Ideas of
things Purely spiritual, these that we call Ideas
of Reflection, such as our Ideas of thought, Love,
fear &c. If we diligently attend to them we
shall find they are Repetitions of these very things
either more fully or faintly, or else they are only
Ideas of some external Circumstances that attend
them, with a supposition of something like what
we have in our own minds, that is, attended with
like Circumstances. Thus tis easy to Percieve that
if we have an Idea of thought tis only a Repeti-
tion of the same thought with the attention of
the mind to that Repetition. So if we think of
Love either of our [illegible] Love or of the Love
of others that we have not, we either so frame
things in our Imagination that we have for a mo-
ment a Love to that thing or to something we
82 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS
make to Represent it& stand for it, or we excite
for a moment the love that we have to something
else & suppose something like it there, or we only-
have an Idea of the name with some of the con-
comitants & effects & suppose something unseen
that [is] used to be signified by that name. & such
kind of Ideas very Commonly serve us, tho they
are not Indeed Real Ideas of the thing it self.
But we have Learn'd by experience & it has become
habitual to us to govern our thoughts, Judgment
& actions about it as tho we concieved of the
thing it self. But if a person has truly & prop-
erly an Idea of any act of Love, of fear or anger
or any other act or motion of the mind, things
must be so ordered and framed in his mind that
he must for that moment have something of a
consciousness of the same motions either to the
same thing, or to something else that is made to
Represent it in the mind, or towards something
else that is pro re nata thither Referd and as it
were transposed, and this consciousness of the
same motions, with a design to Represent the
other by them, is the Idea it self we have of
them, & if it be perfectly clear & full it will be
in all Respects the very same act of mind of
which it is the Idea, with this only difference
ON THE TKINITY 83
that the being of the Latter is to Represent the
former. 1
[If a man could have an absolutely Perfect
Idea of all that Pass'd in his mind, all the series
of Ideas and exercises in every Respect perfect as
to order, degree, circumstance &c for any particu-
lar space of time past, suppose the last hour, he
would Really to all Intents and purpose be over
again what he was that last hour. And if it were
possible for a man by Reflection perfectly to con-
template all that is in his own mind in an hour, as
it is and at the same time that it is there in its
first & direct existence; if a man, that is, had a
perfect Reflex or Contemplative Idea of every
thought at the same moment or moments that
that thought was and of every Exercise at & dur-
ing the same time that that Exercise was, and so
through a whole hour, a man would Really be
two during that time, he would be indeed double,
he would be twice at once. The Idea he has of
himself would be himself again.
Note, by having a Reflex or Contemplative Idea
of what Passes in our own minds I dont mean
Consciousness only. There is a Great difference
between a mans having a view of himself, Reflex
l The next three paragraphs were inserted at a later date.
84 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS
or Contemplative Idea of himself so as to delight
in his own beauty or Excellency, and a meer di-
rect Consciousness. Or if we mean by Conscious-
ness of what is in our own minds any thing be-
sides the meer simple Existence in our minds of
what is there, it is nothing but a Power by Re-
flection to view or contemplate what passes.
But the foregoing position, about a mans being
twofold or twice at once, is most evident by what
has been said of the nature of spiritual Ideas,
for every thing that a man is in that hour he
is twice fully & Perfectly. For all the Ideas
or thoughts that he has are twice Perfectly &
every Judgmt [Judgment] made and every exer-
cise of Inclination or affection, every act of the
mind.]
Therefore as G. with Perfect Clearness, fullness
& strength, understands himself, views his own
essence (in which there is no Distinction of sub-
stance & act but which is wholly substance &
wholly act), that Idea which G. hath of himself
is absolutely himself. This Representation of
the divine nature & essence is the divine nature
& essence again: so that by Gods thinking of
the Deity must certainly be generated. Hereby
there is another Person begotten, there is another
ON THE TRINITY 85
Infinite Eternal Almighty & most holy & the
same G., the very same divine nature.
And this Person is the second Person in the
Trinity, the Only begotten & dearly beloved Son
of G.; he is the Eternal, necessary, Perfect, sub-
stantial & Personal Idea which G. hath of him
self; <fe that it is so seems to me to be abun-
dantly confirmed by the word of G.
1. Nothing can more agree with the account
the Scripture gives us of the Son of G., his being
in the form of G. and his express & Perfect
Image & Representation: 2 Cor. 4, 4, Lest the
Light of the glorious Gosp. of X who is the
Image of G. should shine unto them. Philip. 2,
6, who being in the form of G. Colos. 1. 15, who
is the Image of the Invisible G. Heb. 1. 3, who
being the brightness of his Glory & the express
Image of his Person. 1 [In the original it is
XapatcTrjp rf}<; biroo-rdo-eas dvrov which denotes one
Person as like another as the Impression on the wax
is to the engraving on the seal. (Hurrion, "of
X Crucified," vol. 1, p. 189, 190.); & what can
more agree with this that I suppose, that the Son
of God is the divine Idea of Himself.] What [can]
1 What next follows, within brackets, is a later insertion. The
volume referred to first appeared in 1727.
86 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS
be more properly called the Image of a thing than
the Idea. The end of other Images is to beget
an Idea of the things they Eepresent in us, but
the Idea is the most Immediate Representation, &
seems therefore to be a more primary sort of
Image, & we know of no other spiritual Images
nor Images of spiritual things but Ideas. An
Idea of a thing seems more properly to be called
an Image or Representation of that thing than
any distinct being can be. However exactly one
being — suppose one human body — be like an-
other, yet I think one is not in the most Proper
sense the Image of the other but more properly
in the Image of the other. Adam did not beget
a son that was his Image Properly, but in his
Image ; but the Son of G. — he is not only in the
Image of the F., but he is the Image itself in the
most Proper sense. The design of an Idea is to
Represent, & the very being of an Idea consists
in similitude & Representation : if it dont actu-
ally Represent to the beholder, it ceases to be.
And the being of it is Immediately dependent on
its Pattern : its Reference to that ceasing, it ceases
to be its Idea.
That X is this most Immediate Representation
of the Godhead, viz. the idea of G., is in my ap-
ON THE TRINITY 87
prehension confirmed by Joh. 12, 45, he that
seeth me seeth him that sent me, and Joh. 14, 7,
8, 9, if ye had known me ye should have known
my F. also and from henceforth ye know him and
have seen him. Philip saith unto him, L. shew us
the F. and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him
have I been so long time with you, and yet hast
thou not seen me Philip, he that hath seen me hath
seen the F. and how saist [sayestj thou shew us the
F. See also John 15, 22, 23, 24. Seeing the Per-
fect Idea of a thing is to all Intents and purposes
the same as seeing the thing : it is not only equiva-
lent to the seeing of it but it is the seeing it :
for there is no other seeing but having the Idea.
Now by seeing a Perfect Idea, so far as we see it,
we have it. But it cant be said of any thing else
that in the seeing of it we see another, strictly
speaking, except it be the very Idea of the other.
2. This well agrees with what the SS. teach
us ever was Gods Love to and delight in
his Son. For the Idea of G. is that Image of
G. that is the object of Gods eternal and In-
finite Love & in which he hath perfect Joy &
happiness. God undoubtedly Infinitely loves &
delights in himself & is Infinitely happy in the
understanding & view of his own glorious es-
88 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS
sence: this is commonly said. The same the
Scripture teaches us concerning that Image of
G. that is his Son. The Son of G. — he is the
true David or beloved. Joh. 3, 35 & 5, 20.
The F. loveth the Son. So it was declared
at Xs Baptism and transfiguration, this is my
beloved Son in whom I am well Pleased. So the
Father calls him his elect in whom his soul de-
lighteth. The Infinite happiness of the F. consists
in the enjoymt. [enjoyment] of his Son : Prov. 8,
30, I was daily his delight i.e. before the world
was. It seems to me most Probable that G. has
his Infinite happiness but one way, & that the In-
finite Joy he has in his own Idea & that which he
has in his Son are but one & the same.
3. X is called the face of G., Exod. 33, 14 : the
word in the original signifies face, looks, form or
appearance. Now what can be so Properly &
fitly called so with Respect to G. as Gods own
Perfect Idea of himself whereby he has every
moment a view of his own essence : this Idea is
that face of God which G. sees as a man sees his
own face in a looking glass. Tis of such form or
appearance whereby G. eternally appears to him-
self. The Root that the original word comes
from signifies to look upon or behold : now what
ON THE TRINITY 89
is that which G. looks upon or beholds in so Em-
minent a manner as he doth on his own Idea or
that perfect Image of himself which he has in
view. This is what is eminently in Gods Pres-
ence & is therefore called the angel of Gods
Presence or face. Isai. 63, 9.
4. This seems also well to agree with X being
called the brightness, effulgence or shining forth
of Gods Glory upon two accounts: 1 ? because
tis by Gods Idea that his Glory shines forth &
appears to himself. G, may be concieved of as
Glorious antecedent to his Idea of himself, but
then his Glory is Latent ; but tis the Idea by which
it shines forth and appears to Gods view so that
he can delight in it. 2. God is well Represented
by the Luminary & His Idea by the Light, for
what is so Properly the Light of a mind or spirit
as its knowledge or understanding ? The under-
standing or knowledge of G. is much more prop-
erly Represented by Light in a Luminary than
the understanding of a created mind, for knowl-
edge is light Rather let into a created mind than
shining from it, but the understanding of the di-
vine mind originally Proceeds from this mind it
self & is derived from no other.
5. But That the Son of G. is Gods own eter-
90 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS
nal and Perfect Idea is a thing we have yet
much more expressly Kevealed in Gods word.
First, in that X is called the wisdom of G. If
we are taught in the Scripture that X is the
same with Gods wisdom or knowledge, then it
teaches us that he is the same with Gods perfect
and eternal Idea. They are the same as we have
already observed and I suppose none will deny.
But X is said to be the wisdom of G. : 1 Cor. 1,
24, Luke 11, 49, compare with Math. 23, 34 ; and
how much doth X speak in Prov. under the name
of wisdom especially in the 8 chap. We there
have Wisdom thus declaring, 22 v., The L. Pos-
sessed me in the beginning of his way before his
works of old. I was set up from everlasting or
ever the earth was, when there were no depths I
was brought forth, when there were no fountains
abounding with water. Before the mountains
were settled, before the hills was I brought forth.
While as yet he had not made the earth nor the
fields nor the highest part of the dust of the world.
When he Prepared the heavens I was there, when
he set a compass upon the face of the depth.
When he established the clouds &c. 30 v. Then
was I by him as one brought up with him and I
was daily his delight, Rejoicing alwaies before
ON THE TRINITY 91
him, Rejoicing in the habitable part of his Earth,
and my delights were with the sons of men. It
has been usual to say that he that G. Possessed
& set up from Everlasting & that was brought
forth before the world was, that was by G. as his
Companion and as one brought up with him, that
was daily his delight, was the Personal wisdom of
G. and if so it was Gods Personal Idea of him-
self.
Secondly, in That the SS. teaches us that X is
the Logos of G. It will appear that this Logos is
the same with the Idea of G., whether we Inter-
pret it of the Reason of G. or the word of G. If
it signifies the Reason & understanding of G., I
suppose it wont be denied that tis the same thing
with God's Idea. If we translate it the word of
G. ? he is either the outward word of G., or his In-
ward. None will say he is his outward. Now
the outward word is speech whereby Ideas are
outwardly expressed. The Inward word is thought
or Idea it self. The SS. being its own Interpreter
see how often is thinking in SS. called saying or
speaking, when applied to both G. & men. The
Inward word is the Pattern or original of which
the outward word by which G. has Revealed him-
self is the copy. Now that which is the original
92 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS
from whence the Revelation which G. hath made
of himself is taken & the Pattern to which it is
conformed, is Gods Idea of himself. When G.
declares himself it is doubtless from & according
to the Idea he hath of himself.
Thirdly, to the same purpose is another name
by which X is called, viz. the AMEN, which is a
Hebrew word that signifies truth. Now what is
that which is the Prime, original &> universal truth
but that which is in the divine mind, viz. his Eter-
nal or Infinite knowledge or Idea.
& joining this with what was observed before,
I think we may be bold to say that that which is
the form, face & express & perfect Image of G.,
in beholding which is his eternal delight, & is
also the wisdom & kn owledge, Logos &
truth of G., is Gods Idea of himself. What
other knowledge of G. is there that is the form,
appearance & perfect Image and Representation
of G. but Gods Idea of himself.
& how well doth this agree with his office of
being the Great Prophet & teacher of mankind,
the Light of the World and the Revealer of G. to
creatures: John 8, 12, I am the Light of the
world. Math., 11, 27, no manknoweth the Father
save the Son and he to whomsoever the Son will
ON THE TKINITY 93
.Reveal him. Joh. 1, 18, no man hath seen G. at
any time, the only begotten Son which is in the
Bosom of the F., he hath declared him. Who can
be so Properly appointed to be Revealer of G. to
the world as that Person who is Gods own Perfect
Idea or understanding of himself. Who can be so
Properly generated to be the light by which Gods
Glory shall appear to creatures, as he is[ — ]that
effulgence of his Glory by which he appears to him-
self. & this is Intimated to us in the SS. to be the
Reason why X is the Light of the world & the
Revealer of G. to men because he is the Image of
G., 2 Cor. 4, 4, Least [Lest] the Light of the
Glorious Gosp. of X. who is the Image of G. should
shine unto them. Joh. 12, 45, 46, and he that
seeth me seeth him that sent me, I am come a
light into the world that whosoever believeth on
me should not abide in darkness.
The Godhead being thus begotten by Gods lov-
ing an Idea of himself &> shewing forth in a dis-
tinct subsistence or Person in that Idea, there
Proceeds a most Pure act, & an Infinitely holy &
sacred energy arises between the F. & Son in
mutually Loving & delighting in each other, for
their love & Joy is mutual, Prov. 8, 30, 1 was daily
his delight Rejoicing alwaies before him. This is
94 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS
the eternal & most Perfect & essential act of the
divine nature, wherin the Godhead acts to an In-
finite degree and in the most Perfect manner Pos-
sible. The deity becomes all act, the divine es-
sence it self flows out & is as it were breathed
forth in Love & Joy. So that the Godhead
therm stands forth in yet another manner of sub-
sistence, & there Proceeds the 3d Person in the
Trinity, the holy spirit, viz. the Deity in act, for
there is no other act but the act of the will.
1. We may learn by the word of G. that the
Godhead or the divine nature & essence does sub-
sist in love. 1 Joh. 4, 8, he that loveth not
knoweth not G. for G. is Love. In the context of
which Place I think it is Plainly Intimated to us
that the holy spirit is that Love, as in the 12 & 13
v. If we love one another, G. dwelleth in us and
his Love is perfected in us ; hereby know we that
we dwell in him because he hath given us of his
spirit. Tis the same argument in Both verses. In
the 12 v. the apostle argues that if we have love
dwelling in us we have G. dwelling in us, and in
the 13 v. he clears the force of the argument by
this that love is God's Spirit. Seeing we have Gods
spirit dwelling in us, we have G. dwelling in [in
us], supposing it as a thing granted & allowed that
ON THE TRINITY 95
Gods spirit is G. Tis evident also by this that Gods
dwelling in us & his Love or the Love that he
hath or exerciseth, being in us, are the same thing.
The same is intimated in the same manner in the
Last verse of the foregoing chap. The apostle was,
in the foregoing verses, speaking of Love as a sure
sign of sincerity & our acceptance with G., begin-
ning with the 18 v., & he sums up the argument
thus in the last verse, & hereby do we know that he
abideth in us by the spirit that he hath given us.
Again in the 16 v. of this 4 chap., the Apostle
tells us that G. is Love & he that dwelleth in
Love dwelleth in G. & G. in him, which confirms
not only that the divine nature subsists in love,
but also that this love is the Sp., for it is the Spirit
of G. by which G. dwells in his saints, as the apos-
tle had observed in the 13 verse and as we are
abundantly taught in the New Test.
2. The name of the third 6 Person in the Trinity,
viz. the Holy Sp. confirms it : it naturally ex-
presses the divine nature as subsisting in pure act
& Perfect Energy, & as flowing out & breathing
forth in Infinitely sweet and vigorous affection.
It is confirmed both by his being called the Spirit
& by his being denominated holy. 1. By his be-
ing called the Sp. of G. : the word Sp. in SS.
96 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS
when used concerning minds, when it is not put
for the spiritual substance or mind it self, is put for
the disposition, Inclination or temper of the mind :
Numb. 14, 24, Caleb was of another Sp. Ps. 51,
10, Kenew in me a Eight Sp. Luke 9, 55, Ye
know not what manner of Sp. ye are of. S. 1
Thes. 5, 23, 1 Pray G. your whole Sp. soul & body,
1 Pet. 3, 4, The ornament of a meek & quiet Sp.
When we Read of the spirit of a spirit or mind it
is to be thus understood. Eph. 4, 27, be Renewed
in the spirit of your mind. So I suppose when
we Read of the Sp. of G. who we are told is a Sp.,
it is to be understood of the disposition or temper
or affection of the divine mind. If we Read or
hear of the meek spirit or kind spirit or pious &,
holy spirit of a man we understand it of his tem-
per: so I suppose we Read of the Good Sp. &
holy Sp. of G., it is likewise to be understood of
Gods temper. Now the sum of God's temper or
disposition is love, for he is Infinite love &, as I
observed before, here is no distinction to be made
between habit & act, between temper or disposi-
tion & exercise. This is the divine disposition or
nature that we are made partakers of, 2 Pet. 1, 4,
for our partaking or communion with G. consists
in the Communion or partaking of the H. G.
ON THE TRINITY 97
& It is further confirmed by his being Pecul-
iarly denominated holy. The Father & the Son
are both Infinitely holy & the holy Gh. [Ghost]
can be no holier. But yet the Spirit is especially
called holy, which doubtless denotes some Pecul-
iarity in the manner in which holiness is attributed
to him. But upon this supposition the matter is
easily & clearly explicable. For 1st, it is in the
temper or disposition of a mind & its exercise
that holiness is Immediately seated. A mind is
said to be holy from the holiness of its temper &
disposition. 2. Tis in Gods Infinite love to him-
self that his holiness consists. As all Creature
holiness is to be Resolved into love, as the SS.
teaches us, so doth the holiness of G. himself con-
sist in Infinite love to himself. Gods holiness is
the Infinite beauty & excellence of his nature, &
Gods excellency consists in his Love to himself as
we have observed in 1
[That the Sp. of God is the very same with Ho-
liness (as tis in God, tis the Holiness of God, and
as tis in the Creature, tis the holiness of the creat-
ure), appears by John 3, 6, That which is born of
the flesh is Flesh & that which is born of the
spirit is spirit. Here tis very manifest that flesh
1 The next paragraph is a much later insertion.
98 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWAKDS
& spirit are opposed to one another as true con-
traries, and tis also acknowledged by orthodox di-
vines in general that by the flesh is meant sin or
corruption and, therefore by the spirit is meant its
contrary, viz. Holiness, & that is evidently Xs
meaning, that which is born of the flesh is corrupt
& filthy, but that which is born of the spirit is
holy.]
3. This is very consonant to the office of the
holy Ghost or his work with Respect to Creatures,
which is threefold, viz. to quicken, enliven &
beautify all things, to sanctify Intelligent [beings]
& to comfort & delight them. 1. he quickens &
beautifies all things. So we Read that the Sp. of
G. moved upon the face of the waters or of the
Chaos to bring it out of its Confusion into har-
mony & beauty. So we read, Job 26 13, That G.
by his Spirit garnished the heavens. Now whose
office can it be so Properly to actuate & enliven
all things as his who is the Eternal & essential act
& energy of G. & whose office can it be so Properly
to give all things their sweetness & beauty as he
who is himself the beauty & Joy of the -Creator.
2. Tis he that sanctifies created Sp. ? that is, he
gives them divine Love, for the 88. teaches us
that all holiness & true Grace & virtue is Resolv-
ON THE TRINITY 99
able into that as its universal spring & Principle.
As it is the office of the Person that is Gods Idea
& understanding to be the light of the world, to
communicate understanding, so tis the office of
the Person that is Gods Love to communicate
divine love to the Creature. In so doing, Gods
spirit or love doth but communicate of it self. Tis
the same love so far as a Creature is capable of
being made partaker of it. Gods Sp. or his love
doth but, as it were, come and dwell in our hearts
and act there as a vital Principle, and we become
the living temples of the holy GL, & when men
are Eegenerated & sanctified, G. Pours forth of
his Sp. upon them and they have fellowship or,
which is the same thing, are made partakers with
the F. & Son of their love, i. e. of their Joy &
beauty. Thus the matter is Kepresented in the
Gospel — and this agreable to what was taken no-
tice of before — of the Apostle John, his making
love dwelling in us & Gods Spirit dwelling in us
the same thing, and the explaining of them one
by another, 1 Joh. 4, 12, 13.
"When X says to his F., Joh. 17, 26, and I have
declared unto them thy name &> will declare it,
that the Love wherewith thou hast loved me may
be in them and I in them, I cant think of any
100 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS
way that this will appear so Easy and Intelligible
as upon this hypothesis, viz. that the love with
which the F. loveth the Son is the H. Sp., that X
here concludeth & sums up his Prayer for his dis-
ciples with the Request that the holy Sp. might
be in his disciples & so he might be in them there-
by, for X dwells in his disciples by his Sp., as X
teaches in Joh. 14, 16, 17, 18, I will give you an-
other Comforter — even the Spirit of truth — he
shall be in you. I will not leave you Comfortless,
I will come unto you. And the apostle, Rom. 8,
9, 10, If so be the Sp. of G. dwell in you. Now if
any man have not the Sp. of X he is none of his,
& if X be in you the body is dead. 1
[Mr. Howes observation from the 5 Chap, of Gal.
is here pertinent : Of [from] his Sermons on the
Prosperous State of the Xtian Interest before the
End of Time, Published by Mr. Evans p. 185.
His words are, Walking in the Spirit is directed
with a special Eye & Reference unto the exer-
cise of this love, as you see in Gal. 5, 14, 15, 16,
[in the] verses compared together. All the law is
fulfilled in one word (he means the whole law of
the second Table) even in this thou shalt love
i The next paragraph is a later insertion,— of course earlier than
1726, when this edition of Howe was issued.
ON THE TRINITY 101
thy neighb. as thy self. But if ye bite and de-
vour one another (the opposite to this Love or
that which follows upon the want of it, or from
the opposite principle) take heed that ye be not
consumed one of another. This I say then (ob-
serve the inference) walk in the Spirit & ye
shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. To walk in
the Spirit is to walk in the Exercise of this Love.
The SS. seems in many Places to speak of Love
in Xtians as if it were the same with the Sp. of
G. in them, or at Least as the Prime and most
natural breathing & acting of the Sp. in the soul.
Philip 2, 1, if there be therefore any Consola-
tion in X, any Comfort of Love, any fellowship of
the Sp., any bowels & mercies, fulfill ye my Joy
that ye be likeminded having the same love being
of one accord, of one mind. 2 Cor. 6, 6, by kind-
ness, by the H. Gh., by Love unfeigned. Rom. 15,
30 : Now I beseech you brethren for the L. J. X
sake and for the love of the Sp. Coloss. 1, 8,
who declared unto us your love in the Sp. Rom-
5, 5, having the love of G, shed abroad in our
hearts by the H. Gh. which is Given to us. (See
notes on this Text.) Gal. 5, 13, 14, 15, 16, Use
not liberty for an occasion to the flesh. But by
love serve one another, for all the law is ful-
102 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS
filled in one word even in this, thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thy self. But if ye Bite & devour
one another take heed that ye be not consumed
one of another. This I say then, walk in the Sp.
& ye shall not fulfill the Lusts of the flesh. The
Apostle argues that Xtian liberty dont make way
for fulfilling the lusts of the flesh in biting &> de-
vouring one another & the like, because a princi-
ple of Love which was the fulfilling of the Law
would Prevent it, & in the 16 v. he asserts the
same thing in other words : This I say then walk
in the Sp. & ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the
flesh.
The third & last office of the H. Spirit is to
comfort & delight the souls of Gds People, &
thus one of his names is the Comforter, & thus
we have the phrase of Joy in the H. Gh. 1 Thes.
1, 6 : having Received the word in much affliction
with Joy of the H. Gh. Eom. 14, 17, the king-
dom of G. is High. & Peace &> Joy in the H. Gh.
Act 9, 31, walking in the fear of the Lord &
comfort of the holy Ghost, but how well doth
this agree with the H. Gh. being God's Joy &
delight: Acts 13, 52, and the disciples were
filled with Joy & with the holy Gh. — meaning as
I suppose that they were filled with spiritual joy.
ON THE TRINITY 103
4. This is confirmed By the symbol of the H.
Gh., viz. a dove, which is the Emblem of Love or
a lover and is so used in SS. and especially often
so in Solomons Song, Cant. 1, 15, Behold thou
art fair, my Love, behold thou art fair, thou hast
Doves Eyes : i.e. Eyes of love, & again 4, 1, the
same words, & 5, 12, his Eyes are as the eyes of
doves, & 5, 2, my Love, my dove, & 2, 14, & 6, 9 ;
and this I believe to be the Reason that the dove
alone of all birds (except the sparrow in the
single case of the Leprosy) was appointed to be
offered in sacrifice because of its Innocency and
because it is the emblem of love, love being the
most acceptable sacrifice to God. it was under
this similitude that the Holy Ghost descended
from the F. on X at his Baptism, signifying the
Infinite love of the F. to the So, who is the true
David, or beloved, as we said before. The same
was signified by what was exhibited to the Eye
in the appearance there was of the holy Gh. de-
scending from the F. to the S. in the shape of a
dove, as was signified by what was exhibited to
the eye in the voice there was at the same time,
viz., This is my well beloved Son in whom I am
well pleased. 1
1 The next paragraph is a late insertion.
104 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OP EDWAKDS
[Holy Ghost, Love, represented by the Symbol
of a dove. In the beginning of Genesis it is said
the spirit of God moved upon the Face of the
waters. The word translated moved in the orig-
inal is MBtinti, which as Buxtorf & Grotius observe,
properly signifies the Brooding of a dove upon her
Eggs. See Buxtorf on the Radix srn & Grotius's
truth of the Xtian R. B. 1, Sect. 16, notes, where
Grotius observes that the Meracheth also signifies
Love. See my notes on Gen. 1, 2.]
5. This is confirmed from the types of the H.
Gh., and especially from that type of oil which is
often used as a type of the Holy Gh. & may well
Represent divine [love] from its soft, smooth, flow-
ing & diffusive nature. Oil is from the Olive
Tree which was of old used to betoken Love, Peace
& friendship. That was signified by the olive
branch with which the dove Returned to Noah.
It was a token for and a sign of God's love and
favour, after so terrible a manifestation of his dis-
pleasure as the deluge. The olive branch & the
dove that brought it were both the Emblems of
the same, viz., the Love of God. But especially
did the holy anointing oil, the Principal type of
the H. Gh., Represent the divine love & delight,
by Reason of its excellent sweetness & fragrancy.
ON THE TRINITY 105
Love is expressly said to be like it in Scripture in
the 133 Ps. 20, Behold how Good x
[That God's Love or his Loving kindness is the
same with the Holy Ghost seems to be plain by
Ps. 36, 7, 8, 9 : How excellent (or how precious, as
'tis in the Hebrew) is thy loving kindness O God,
therefore the children of men put their trust
under the shadow of thy wings, they shall be
abundantly satisfied (in the Hebrew watered)
with the fatness of thy house & thou shalt make
them to drink of the river of thy pleasures, for
with thee is the fountain of Life & in thy light
shall we see light. Doubtless that precious Lov-
ing kindness & that fatness of God's House &
Kiver of his pleasures & the water of the fountain
of Life & Gods light here spoken [of] are the same
thing : by which we learn that the Holy anointing
oil that was kept in the House of God, which was
a type of the Holy Ghost, represented Gods Love,
& that the Kiver of water of Life, spoken of in
the 22. of Revelation, which proceeds out of the
throne of God & of the Lamb, which is the same
with Ezekiel's vision of Living and life-giving
water, which is here called the fountain of Life &
river of Gods pleasures, is Gods Loving-kindness.
1 The next paragraph is a much later insertion.
106 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS
But X himself expressly teaches us that By spir-
itual fountains & rivers of water of Life is meant
the Holy Ghost. Joh. 4, 14 & 7, 38, 39. 1 That
by the River of Gods Pleasures here is meant the
same thing with that pure River of water of Life
spoken of in Rev. 22. 1 will be much confirmed if
we compare those verses with Rev. 21. 23, 24 &
Chap. 22. 1, 5. (see the note on Chap. 21, 23, 24.)
I think if we compare these places & weigh them
we cannot doubt but that it is the same Happi-
ness that is meant in this Psalm which is spoken
of there.]
6. So this well agrees with the similitudes and
metaphors that are used about the holy Gh. in
SS., such as water, fire, breath, wind, oil, wine, a
spring, a River, a being Poured out <fc shed forth,
a being breathed forth. Can there any spirituall
thing be thought, or any thing belonging to any
spiritual being to which such kind of metaphors
so naturally agree, as to the affection of a Sp.
The affection, Love or Joy, may be said to flow
out as Water or to be breathed forth as breath or
wind. But it would [not] sound so well to say
that an Idea or Judgm*. flows out or is Breathed
forth. It is no way different to say of the affec-
1 What follows is evidently added at a still later time.
ON THE TKINITY 107
tion that it is warm, or to compare love to fire,
but it would not seem natural to say the same of
Perception or Keason. It seems natural Enough
to say that the soul is Poured out in affection or
that Love or delight are shed abroad: Tit. 3, 5,
6, the Love of God is shed abroad in our hearts,
but it suits with nothing else belonging to a spir
itual being.
This is that River of water of life spoken of
in the 22 of Rev., which Proceeds from the
throne of the Father & the Son, for the Rivers
of Living water or water of Life are the H. Gh.,
by the same apostles own Interpretation, Joh. 7,
38, 39 ; & the Holy Gh. being the Infinite Delight
& Pleasure of G., the River is called the River of
Gods Pleasures, Ps. 36, 8, not Gods River of
Pleasures, which I suppose signifies the same as
the fatness of Gods house, which they that trust
in God shall be watered with, by which fatness
of Gods house I suppose is signified the same
thing which oil typifies.
7. It is a Confirmation that the holy Gh. is
Gods Love & Delight, Because the saints Com-
munion with G. consists in their Partaking of the
H. Gh. The Communion of saints is twofold:
tis their Communion with G. & Communion with
108 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OP EDWAKDS
one another : 1 Job. 1, 3, That ye also may have
fellowship with us & truly our fellowship is with
the F. & with his son J. X. Communion is a
Common Partaking of Good, either of excellency
or happiness, so that when it is said the saints
have Communion or fellowship with the F. &
with the Son, the meaning of it is that they Par-
take with the F. & the Son of their Good, which
is either their excellency & glory, (2 Pet. 1, 4, ye
are made Partakers of the divine nature ; Heb.
12, 4, that we might be Partakers of his holiness ;
Joh. 17, 22, 23, & the Glory which thou hast given
me I have given them that they may be one even
as we are one I in them & thou in me) ; or of
their Joy & happiness: Joh. 17, 13, that they
may have my Joy fulfilled in themselves. But
the Holy Gh., Being the Love & Joy of G., is his
beauty & happiness, & it is in our partaking of
the same holy Sp. that our Communion with G.
consists: 2 Cor. 13, 14, The Grace of the L. J. X
& the love of G. & the Communion of the Holy
Ghost be with you all, Amen. They are not
different benefits but the same that the Apostle
here wisheth, viz. the Holy Ghost : in partaking
of the holy Ghost, we possess & enjoy the Love
& Grace of the F. & the Son, for the Holy Gh. is
ON THE TKINITY 109
that love & Grace, & therefore I suppose it is
that in that forementioned Place, 1 Joh. 1, 3, we
are said to have fellowship with" the Son & not
with the H. GL, because therein consists our fel-
lowship with the Father & the Son, even in par-
taking with them of the H. Gh. In this also
eminently consists our Communion with the Son
that we drink into the same Sp. This is the
common Excellency & Joy & happines in which
they all are united ; tis the bond of Perfectness by
which they are one in the F. & the Son as the F.
is in the Son . . .
8. I can think of no other good account that
can be given of the apostle Pauls wishing Grace
and Peace from G. the F. & the L. J. X. in the
Beginning of his Epistles, without ever mentioning
the H. Gh., — as we find it thirteen times in his
salutations in the beginnings of his Epistles, — But
[i. e. 7 except] that the Holy Gh. is himself Love and
Grace of G. the F. & the L. J. X. ; & in his bless-
ing at the End of his second Epistle to the Cor-
inthians where all three Persons are mentioned he
wishes Grace and love from the Son and the F [ex-
cept that], in the Communion or the Partaking of the
holy Gh., the blessing is from the F. & the Son is
the H. Gh. But the blessing from the holy Gh. is
110 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS
himself, the communication of himself. John 14,
21, 23, X Promises that he and the Father will
Love believers, but no mention is made of the
holy Ghost, and the Love of X and the Love of
the Father are often distinctly mentioned, but
never any mention of the Holy Ghosts Love. 1
[This I suppose to be the reason why we have
never any account of the Holy Ghosts Loving
either the Father or the Son, or of the Sons or
the Fathers Loving the Holy Ghost, or of the
Holy Ghosts Loving the saints, tho these things
are so often Predicated of Both the other Persons.]
& This I suppose to be that Blessed Trinity
that we Bead of In the Holy SS. The F. is the
Deity subsisting in the Prime, unoriginated &
most absolute manner, or the deity in its direct
existence The Son is the deity generated by
Gods understanding, or having an Idea of himself
& subsisting in that Idea. The Holy Gh. is the
Deity subsisting in act, or the divine essence flow-
ing out and Breathed forth in Gods Infinite love
to & delight in himself. & I believe the whole
divine Essence does Truly & distinctly subsist
both in the divine Idea & divine Love, and that
each of them are Properly distinct Persons.
1 The next paragraph is a later insertion.
ON THE TKINITY 111
& It confirms me in it that this is the True
Trinity because Eeason is sufficient to tell us that
there must be these distinctions In the deity, viz.,
of G. (absolutely considered), & the Idea of G., &
Love & delight, & there are no other Real distinc-
tions in G. that can be thought. There are but
these three distinct Eeal things in G. Whatso-
ever else can be mentioned in G. are nothing
but meer modes or Relations of Existence. There
are his attributes of Infinity, Eternity and Immor-
tality; they are meer modes of existence. There is
Gods understanding, his wisdom & omniscience
that we Have shewn to be the same with his Idea,
There is Gods will, But this is not Really distin-
guished from his love, But is the same but only
with a different Relation. As the sum of Gods
understanding consists in his having an Idea of
himself, so the sum of his will or Inclination con-
sists in his loving himself, as we have already
observed. There is Gods Power or Ability to
bring things to Pass. But this is not Really dis-
tinct from his understanding & will; it is the same
but only with the Relation they have to those ef-
fects that are, or are to be Produced. There is
Gods holiness, but this is the same, as we have
shewn in what we have said of the nature of ex-
112 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS
cellency, with his love to himself. There is Gods
Justice, which is not Keally distinct from his holi-
ness. There are the attributes of Goodness, mercy
and Grace, but these are but the overflowing of
Gods Infinite love. The sum of all Gods Love is
his Love to himself. These three, G., and the Idea
of G., & the Inclination, affection & love of G.,
must be conceived as Keally distinct. But as for
all these other things of extent, duration, being
with or without change, ability to do, they are not
distinct Real things even in created spirits but
only meer modes and Relations. So that our
natural Reason is sufficient to tell us that there
are these three in G., and we can think of no
more.
It is a maxim amongst divines that everything
that is in G. is G. which must be understood of
Real attributes and not of meer modalities. If a
man should tell me that the Immutability of G. is
G. or that the omnipresence of G. & authority of
G., is God, I should not be able to think of any
Rational meaning of what he said. It hardly
sounds to me Proper to say that Gods being with-
out change is G., or that Gods being Every where
is God, or that Gods having a Right of Government
over Creatures is G. But if it be meant that the
ON THE TRINITY • 113
Real attributes of G., viz. his understanding & love
are G., then what we have said may in some meas-
ure explain how it is so, for deity subsists in them
distinctly ; so they are distinct divine persons. We
find no other attributes of which it is said that
they are G. in SS. or that G. is they, but -40709 &
Ayami^ the Reason & the Love of G. Joh. 1, 1, &,
1 Joh. 4, 8, 16. Indeed it is said that G. is Light,
1 Joh. 1, 5, But what can we understand by di-
vine light different from the divine Reason or un-
derstanding ? The same apostle tells us that X is
the True Light, Joh. 1, 9, & the apostle Paul tells
us that he is the effulgence of the Fathers Glory,
Heb. 1, 3. 1
[This is that Light that the Holy Ghost in the
Prophet Daniel says dwells with God, Dan. 2, 22,
& the Light dwelleth with him, — the same with
that word or Reason that the apostle John says, 1
Chap, of his Gospel, was with God & was God,
that he there says is the true Light, and speaks
much of, vide that Chapter, v. 4, 5, 7, 8, 9. This is
that Wisdom that says in the 8 of Prov., 30 v, that
he was by God as one brought up with him. This
is the Light with respect to which especially God
the Father may be called the Father of Lights.]
1 The next paragraph is inserted later.
114 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS
One of the Principal Objections that I can
think of against what has been supposed is con-
cerning the Personality of the holy Gh. — that this
scheme of things dont seem well to consist with
[the fact] that a person is that which hath under-
standing & will. If the three in the Godhead are
Persons they doubtless each of them have under-
standing, but this makes the understanding one
distinct person & Love another. How therefore
can this Love be said to have understanding? (Here
I would observe that divines have not been wonl
to suppose that these three had three distinct un-
derstandings, but all one and the same understand-
ing.) In order to clear up this matter Let it be
considered that the whole divine office is supposed
truly & Properly to subsist in Each of these three;
viz., G. & his understanding & love, & that there
is such a wonderfull union between them thai
they are, after an Ineffable & Inconcievable man-
ner, one in another, so that one hath another & they
have communion in one another & are as it were
Predicable one of another ; as X said of himself
& the R, I am in the F & the P. in me, so maj
it be said concerning all the Persons in the Trini
ty, the F. is in the Son & the S. in the F., th*
H. Gh. is in the F., & the F. in the H. Gh., the
ON THE TRINITY 115
H. Gh. is in the S. & the Son in the H. GL, & the
F. understands because the Son who is the divine
understanding is in him, the F. loves because the
H. Gh, is in him, so the Son loves because the H.
Gh. is in him & proceeds from him, so the H. Gh.
or the divine essence subsisting is divine, but un-
derstands because the Son the divine Idea is in
him. Understanding may be Predicated of this
Love because it is the love of the understanding
both objectively & subjectively. G. loves the
understanding & that understanding also flows
out in love so that the divine understanding is in
the deity subsisting in love. It is not a blind
love. Even in Creatures there is Consciousness
Included in the very nature of the will or act of
thes soul, & tho perhaps not so that it can so Prop-
erly be said that it is a seeing or understanding
will, yet it may truly & properly be said so in G.,
by Eeason of Gods Infinitely more perfect man-
ner of acting so that the whole divine essence
flows out & subsists in this act., & the Son is in
the holy Sp. tho it dont Proceed from him by
Reason [of the fact] that the understanding must
be considered as Prior in the order of nature to
the will or love or act, both in Creatures & in the
Creator. The understanding is so in the Sp. that
116 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS
the Sp. may be said to know, as the Sp. of G, is
truly & Perfectly said to know & to search all
things, even the deep things of G. 1
[All the three are persons for they all have un-
derstanding & will. There is understanding &
will in the F., as the Son & the holy Gh. are in
him & proceed from him. There is understanding
& will in the Son, as he is understanding & as the
Holy Gh. is in him & proceeds from him. There
is understanding & will in the Holy Gh. as he is
the divine will & as the Son is in him. Nor is it
to be looked upon as a strange & unreasonable
figment that the Persons should be said to have
an understanding or Love by another Persons be-
ing in them, for we have scripture ground to con-
clude so concerning the Fathers having wisd. &
understanding or Reason that it is by the Sons
being in him; because we are there Informed
that he is the wisd. & Reason & Truth of G. &
hereby G. is wise by his own wisdom being in
him. Understanding & wisdom is in the F. as
the Son is in him & Proceeds from him. Under-
standing is in the H. Gh. because the Son is in
him, not as proceeding from him but as flowing
out in him.]
1 The next paragraph is a later insertion.
ON THE TRINITY 117
But I dont Pretend fully to explain how these
things are & I am sensible a hundred other ob-
jections may be made & puzzling doubts & ques-
tions Raised that I cant solve. I am far from
Pretending to explaining the Trinity so as to
Render it no Longer a mystery. I think it to be
the highest & deepest of all divine mysteries still,
notwithstanding anything that I have said or con-
ceived about it. I dont Intend to explain the
Trinity. But Scripture with Reason may Lead to
say something further of it than has been wont to
be said, tho there are still Left many things Per-
taining to it Incomprehensible. It seems to me
that what I have here supposed concerning the
Trinity is exceeding analogous to the Gospel
scheme and agreeable to the Tenour of the whole
N. T. & abundantly Illustrative of Gospel doc-
trines, as might be Particularly shewn, would it not
exceedingly Lengthen out this discourse.
I shall only now Briefly observe that many
things that have been wont to be said by orthodox
divines about the Trinity are hereby Illustrated.
Hereby we see how the F. is the fountion of
the Godhead, & why when he is spoken of in SS.
he is so often, without any addition or distinction,
called G. ? which has led some to think that he
L18 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OP EDWARDS
only was truly & properly G. Hereby we may
see why in the (Economy of the Persons of the
Trinity the E should sustain the dignity of the
deity, that the F. should have it as his office to
uphold & maintain the Eights of the Godhead &
should be God not only by essence but, as it were,
by his (economical office. Hereby is illustrated the
doc. [doctrine] of the H. Gh. Proceeding [from]
both the F. & the Son. Hereby we see how that
it is possible for the Son to be begotten by the F.
& the H. Gh. to Proceed from the F. & Son, & yet
that all the persons should be Coeternal. Hereby
we may more clearly understand the Equality of
the Persons among themselves, & that they are
every way equal in the society or Family of the
three. They are equal in honour: besides the
honour which is common to 'em all, viz. that they
are all God, each has his peculiar honour in the
society or family. They are equal not only in es-
sence, but the Fathers honour is that he is, as it
were, the author of Perfect & Infinite wisdom.
The son's honour is that he is that perfect & di-
vine wisdom itself the excellency of which is that
from whence arises the honour of being the author
or Generator of it. The honour of the F. & the
Son is that they are Infinitely Excellent, or that
ON THE TKINITY 119
from them Infinite Excellency Proceeds ; but the
honour of the H. Gh. is equal for he is that di-
vine excellency & beauty itself. Tis the Honour
of the F. & the Son that they are Infinitely holy
and are the fountain of holiness, but the honour
of the H. Gh. is that holiness itself. The honour
of the F. & the Son is [that] they are Infinitely
happy & are the original & fountain of happiness,
& the honour of the holy Gh. is Equal for he is
Infinite happiness & Joy itself. The Honour of
the F. is that he is the fountain of the deity as he
from whom proceed both the divine wisdom & also
excellency & happiness. The honour of the Son is
Equal for he is himself the divine wisd. & is
he from whom proceeds the divine excellency &
happiness, & the honour of the Holy Gh. is equal
for he is the beauty & happiness of both the
other Persons.
By this also we may fully understand the
Equality of Each Person's Concern in the W[ork]
of Redemption, & the equality of the Redeemeds'
Concern with them & dependence upon them, &
the Equality & honour & Praise due to Each of
them. Glory belongs to the F. & the Son that
they so greatly Loved the world : to the F. that
he so Loved that he gave his only begotten Son :
120 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS
to the son that he so loved the world as to give
up himself. But there is Equal Glory due to the
H. Gh., for he is that Love of the F. & the Son to
the world. Just so much as the two first Persons
glorify themselves by showing the astonishing
greatness of their Love & Grace, Just so much is
that wonderful Love & Grace glorified who is the
H. Gh. It shows the Infinite dignity and excel-
lency of the Father that the Son so delighted &
prized his honour & glory that he stooped infinite-
ly Low Rather than [that] men's salvation should
be to the Injury of that honour & glory. It showed
the Infinite excellency & worth of the Son that
the F. so delighted in him that for his sake he
was Ready to quit his anger & Receive into favour
those that had [deserved?] Infinitely ill at his
hands. & what was done shews how great the
excellency & worth of the H. Gh. who is that de-
light which the F. & the Son have in Each other :
it shows it to be Infinite. So great as the worth of
a thing delighted in is to any one, so great is the
worth of that delight & Joy itself which he has in it.
Our dependence is equally upon each in this
office. The F. appoints & Provides the Redeemer,
& himself accepts the Price and grants the thing
purchased ; the Son is the Redeemer by offering
ON THE TRINITY 121
himself & is the Price ; & the H. Gh. Immediately
communicates to us the thing Purchased by com-
municating himself, & he is the thing Purchased.
The sum of all that X Purchased for men was the
H. Gh. : GaL 3, 13, 14, he was made a Curse for
us — that we might Recieve the .Promise of the
Sp. through Faith. What X Purchased for us
was that we have Communion with G. [which]
is his Good, which consists in Partaking of the holy
Ghost : as we have shown, all the blessedness of
the Redeemed consists in their Partaking of X's
fullness, which consists in Partaking of that Spirit
which is given not by measure unto him : the oil
that is Poured on the head of the Church Runs
down to the members of his body and to the skirts
of his Garment, Ps. 133, 2. X Purchased for us
that we should have the favour of G. & might
Enjoy his Love, but this Love is the H. Gh. X
Purchased for us True spiritual excellency, grace &
holiness, the sum of which is Love to God, which
is [nothing] but the Indwelling of the Holy Gh. in
the heart. X purchased for us spiritual Joy &
comfort, which is in a participation of God's Joy
& happiness, which Joy & happiness is the H. Gh.,
as we have shewn. The Holy Gh. is the sum of
all good things. Good things & the Holy Sp. are
122 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS
synonymous expressions in SS. : Math. 7, 11, how
much more shall your heavenly F. give the Holy
Sp. to them that ask him. The sum of all spirit-
ual good which the finite have in this world is
that spring of living water within them which we
Read of, Joh. 4, 10, &c, & those Rivers of living
water flowing out of them which we Read of, Joh.
7, 38, 39, which we are there told means the H.
Gh. ; & the sum of all happiness in the other world
is that River of water of Life which Proceeds out
of the throne of G. & the Lamb, which we Read
of, Rev. 22, 1, which is the River of Gods Pleas-
ures & is the H. Gh. & therefore the sum of the
Gospel Invitation to come & take the water of
life, verse 17. The H. Gh. is the Purchased Pos-
session & Inheritance of the saints, as appears be-
cause that little of it which the saints have in this
world is said to be the Ernest of that Purchased
Inheritance, Eph. 1, 14. 2 Cor. 1, 22 & 5, 5 : tis
an Ernest of that which we are to have a fullness
of hereafter. The Holy Gh. is the great subject
of all gosp. [el] Promises & Therefore is called
the Sp. of Promise, Eph. 1, 13. This is called the
Promise of the F., Luke 24, 49, & the like in other
Places. 1 [If the Holy Gh. be a Comprehension
1 The next sentence is added as a later footnote.
ON THE TRINITY 123
of all Good things Promised in the Gospel, we may
easily see the force of the Apostle's arguing, GaL
3. 2, This only would I know, Recieved ye the Sp.
by the works of the Law or by the hearing of
faith ?] So that Tis G. of whom our good is pur-
chased & tis G. that Purchases it & tis G. also that
is the thing Purchased. Thus all our Good things
are of G. & through God & in G., as we read in
Rom. 11, 36: "for of him & through him & to him
(or in him as ek is Rendered, 1 Cor. 8, 6.) are all
things." To whom be Glory forever. All our
Good is of G. the F., tis all through G. the Son, &
all is in the H. Gh., as he is himself all our Good.
G. is himself the Portion &> purchased Inheritance
of his People. Thus G. is the Alpha & the Omega
in this affair of Redemption. If we suppose no
more than used to be supposed about the H. Gh.
the Concern of the Holy Gh. in the work of Re-
demption is not Equal with the Father's & the
Son's, nor is there an equal part of the Glory of
this work belonging to him : meerly to apply to us
or Immediately to give or hand to us the blessing
purchased, after it was purchased, as subservient
to the other two persons, is but a little thing [com-
pared] to the Purchasing of it by the Paying an In-
finite Price, by X offering up himself in sacrifice to
124 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS
procure it, & tis but a little thing to God the
Fathers giving his Infinitely dear Son to be a
sacrifice for us & upon his purchase to afford to us
all the blessings of his purchased. But according
to this there is an Equality. To be the Love of
G. to the world is as much as for the F. & the Son
to do so much from Love to the world, & to be the
thing Purchased was as much as to be the Price.
The Price & the thing bought with that Price are
equal. And tis as much as to afford the thing
purchased, for the glory that belongs to him that
affords the thing Purchased arises from the worth
of that thing that he affords & therefore tis the
same Glory & an Equal Glory ; the Glory of the
thing itself is its worth & that is also the Glory
of him that affords it.
There are two more Eminent & Remarkable
Images of the Trinity among the Creatures. The
one is in the spiritual Creation, the soul of man.
There is the mind, & the understanding or Idea,
& the spirit of the mind as it is called in SS. i.e.
the disposition], the will or affection. The other is
in the visible Creation viz. the Sun. The father
is as the substance of the Sun. (By substance I
dont mean in a philosophical sense, but the Sun
as to its Internal Constitution.) The Son is as
ON THE TRINITY 125
the Brightness & Glory of the disk of the Sun or
that bright & glorious form under which it ap-
pears to our Eyes. The Holy Gh. is the action of
the Sun which is within the Sun in its Intestine
Heat, &, being diffusive, enlightens, warms, en-
livens & comforts the world. The Sp., as it is
Gods Infinite love to himself & happiness in him-
self, is as the internal heat of the Sun, but, as it is
that by which G. communicates himself, it is as
the Emanation of the suns action, or the Emitted
Beams of the sun.
The various sorts of Bays of the Sun & their
beautiful Colours do well Bepresent the Sp. 1
They well [Bepresent the love & grace of G. and
were made use of for this purpose in the Bain-
bow after the flood & I suppose also in that Bain-
bow that was seen Bound about the throne by
Ezek[iel] : Ezek 1, 28, Bev. 4, 3, & Bound the head
of X by John, Bev. 10, 1.] or the amiable excel-
lency of G. and the various beautiful Graces &
virtues of the Sp. These beautiful Colours of the
sunbeams we find made use of in SS. for this pur-
pose, viz. to Bepresent the Graces of the Sp., as 68.
Ps. 13 v. : Tho Ye have lien among the Pots, yet
shall ye be as the wings of a dove Covered with
1 The following sentence was inserted later.
126 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS
silver & her feathers with yellow gold, i.e. like
the Light Reflected in various beautiful Colours
from the Feathers of a dove, which Colours Rep-
resent the Graces of the Heavenly Dove. The
same I suppose is signified by the various beauti-
ful colours Reflected from the Precious stones of
the breastplate, & that these spiritual ornaments
of the Chh are what are Represented by the vari-
ous Colours of the foundation & gates of the new
Jerusalem, Rev. 21 & Isaiah 54, 11 <fec. — & the
stones of the Temple, 1 Chron. 29, 2 ; & I believe
the variety there is in the Rays of the Sun &
their beautiful Colours was designed by the Crea-
tor for this very purpose, & Indeed that the
whole visible Creation which is but the shadow
of being is so made and ordered by G. as to typ-
ify & Represent spiritual things, for which I
could give many reasons. 1 [I dont propose this
meerly as an hypothesis but as a part of divine
truth sufficiently & fully ascertained by the Rev-
elation God has made in the Holy Scriptures.] 2
[I am sensible what kind of objections many
will be ready to make against what has been said,
1 The next sentence is a later addition.
2 The original treatise appears to end here ; what follows is inde-
pendently written later, on another sheet.
ON THE TRINITY 127
what difficulties will be immediately found, How
can this be % & how can that be ?
I am far from affording this as any explication
of this mystery, that unfolds & renews the mys-
teriousness & incomprehensibleness of it, for I am
sensible that however by what has been said
some difficulties are lessened, others that are new
appear, and the number of those things that ap-
pear mysterious, wonderful & incomprehensible,
is increased by it. I offer it only as a farther
manifestation of what of divine Truth the word
of G. exhibits to the view of our minds concern-
ing this great mystery. I think the word of G.
teaches us more things concerning it to be be-
lieved by us than have been generally believed, &
that it exhibits many things concerning it exceed-
ing [i. e., more] glorious & wonderful than have
been taken notice of; yea, that it reveals or
exhibits many more wonderful mysteries than
those which have been taken notice of; which
mysteries that have been overvalued are in-
comprehensible things & yet have been exhibited
in the word of G., tho they are an addition to
the number of mysteries that are in it. No
wonder that the more things we are told con-
cerning that which is so Infinitely above our
128 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS
reach, the number of visible mysteries increases.
When we tell a child a little concerning God he
has not an hundreth part so many mysteries in
view on the nature & attributes of G. & his
works of Creation & Providence as one that is
told much concerning God in a divinity school ;
& yet he knows much more about God & has a
much clearer understanding of things of Divinity
& is able more clearly to explicate some things
that were dark and very unintelligible to him. I
humbly apprehend that the things that have been
observed increase the number of visible myste-
ries in the Godhead in no other manner than as
by them we perceive that G. has told us much
more about it then was before generally ob-
served. Under the Old Testament the Chh. of
G. were not told near so much about the Trinity
as they are now. But what the N. T. has re-
vealed, tho it has more opened to our view the
nature of God, yet it has increased the number of
visible mysteries & they thus appear to us ex-
ceeding wonderfull & incomprehensible. & so
also it has come to pass in the Chh., being told
[i. e., that the Churches are told] more about the
Incarnation & the Satisfaction of X & other
Gospel doctrines. Tis so not only in divine
ON THE TRINITY 129
things but natural things. He that looks on a
plant, or the Parts of the bodies of animals, or
any other works of nature, at a great distance
where he has but an obscure sight of it, may see
something in it wonderfull & beyond his Com-
prehension, but he that is near to it & views
them narrowly indeed understands more about
them, has a clearer and distinct sight of them, &
yet the number of things that are wonderfull &
mysterious in them that appear to him are much
more than before, &, if he views them with a
microscope, the number of the wonders that he
sees will be much increased still, but yet the
microscope gives him more of a true knowledge
concerning them.]
God is never said to love the Holy Gh., nor are
any Epithets that betoken Love any where given
to him, tho' so many are ascribed to the Son, as
Gods Elect, The beloved, he in whom Gods soul
delighteth, he in whom he is well pleased &c. —
Yea such Epithets seem to be ascribed to the Son
as tho he were the object of Love exclusive of
all other Persons, as tho there were no Person
whatsoever to share the Love of the Father with
the Son. To this purpose evidently he is called
Gods only begotten Son, at the time that it is
130 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS
added, In whom he is well pleased. There is
nothing in SS. that speaks of any acceptance of
the Holy Gh. ? or any Reward or any mutual
Friendship between the H. Gh. and either of the
other Persons, or any Command to Love the Holy
Ghost or to delight in or have any Complacence
in [the H. G.], tho such commands are so frequent
with Respect to the other Persons.
The Son of God] Agreable to the Son of Gods
being the Wisdom or Understanding of God is
that Zech. 3, 9, read, For behold the stone that I
have laid before Joshua ; upon one stone shall be
seven Eyes. This stone is the Messiah (See Ob-
servations on the Place in my discourse on the
Prophecies of the Messiah : Miscel. B. 6.) By
these Eyes is represented Gods understanding, [as
shewn] by the explanation which God himself
gives of it in the next Chap. v. 10. These seven
are the eyes of the Lord which run to and fro
through the whole Earth. The seven Eyes,
being by a wonderfull work of God Graven on
the stone, a thing in itself very far from sight,
represents the incarnation of X in uniteing the
Logos or wisdom of God to that which is in it
self so weak & blind & infinitely far from di-
vinity as the Human Nature. The same again is
ON THE TRINITY 131
represented, Rev. 5, 6, And I beheld & Lo in
the midst of the Throne and of the four Beasts
and in the midst of the Elders stood a Lamb as
it had been slain, having seven horns & seven
Eyes which are the seven spirits of (rod. The
plain allusion here to that other place in Zechary
shews that the stone there spoken of, with seven
Eyes, is the Messiah, that elsewhere is often
called a stone. And whereas [i. e. 9 with reason]
these seven Eyes are said to be the seven spirits
of God i. e. the Perfect & alsufficient spirit of
God, for tis by the Holy Spirit that the divine
nature & the divine Logos or understanding or
wisdom is united to the human nature.
That in Rom. 5, 5, The Love of God is shed
abroad in our Hearts by the Holy Ghost &c. in
the original is The Love of God is poured out
into our Hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given
to us; So that the same representation is made
of the manner of communicating it that is made
from time to time to signify the manner of com-
municating the Spirit of God himself & the same
expression used to signify it. The Love of God
is not said to be poured out into our Hearts, in
any propriety [of speech], any other way than as
the Holy Spirit which is the Love of God is
132 AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OT? E13WAKDS
poured out into our Hearts, & it seems to be in-
timated that it is this way that the Love of God
is poured out into our Hearts by the words an-
nexed, by the Holy Ghost which is given to us.
Holy Ghost. These two Texts illustrate one
the other : Cant. 1, 4, we will Remember thy Love
more than Wine, & Eph. 5, 18, Be not drunk
with wine but be ye filled with the Spirit.
That Knowledge or understanding in God
which we must conceive of as first is his Knowl-
edge of every Thing possible. That Love which
must be This Knowledge is what we must con-
ceive of as belonging to the Essence of the God-
head in its first subsistence. Then comes a Re-
flex act of Knowledge & his viewing Himself &
knowing himself & so knowing his own Knowl-
edge & so the Son is begotten. There is such a
Thing in God as knowledge of knowledge, an
Idea of an Idea. Which can be nothing else than
the Idea or Knowledge repeated.
The World was made for the Son of God espe-
cially. For God made the world for Himself
from Love to Himself; but God loves Himself
only in a reflex act. He views Himself & so loves
ON THE TRINITY 133
Himself, so he makes the world for Himself
viewed & Reflected on, & that is the same with
Himself repeated or begotten in his own Idea, &
that is his Son. When God considers of making
any thing for Himself He presents Himself before
Himself & views Himself as his End, and that
viewing Himself is the same as Reflecting on him-
self or having an Idea of Himself, and to make
the world for the Godhead thus viewd & under-
stood is to make the world for the Godhead be-
gotten & that is to make the world for the Son of
God.
The Love of God as it flows forth ad extra is
wholly determined and directed by divine wisdom,
so that those only are the Objects of it that di-
vine wisdom chuses, so that the Creation of the
world is to gratify divine Love as that is exer-
cised by divine wisdom. But X is divine wisdom,
so that the world is made to gratify Divine Love
as exercised by Christ or to gratify the Love that
is in Xs Heart, or to provide a spouse for X.
Those creatures which Wisdom chuses for the
Object of divine Love]as?tXs Elect spouse and es-
pecially those elect creatures that Wisdom chiefly
pitches upon & makes the End of the Rest of
creatures.
APPENDIX
APPENDIX
THE DISMISSAL OF EDWARDS FROM THE CHURCH IN
NORTHAMPTON
The great trial — one is tempted to call it the tragic
event — in the career of Edwards was his dismissal from his
pastoral charge at Northampton, after a service of twenty-
four years in the ministry there — a dismissal that was
judged to be expedient by a majority of one in a council of
ministers and by a large majority of the members of the
church. It was preceded by a discord which had lasted for
a number of years. Were we to look up the causes that
led to this separation, we should have to explore the his-
tory of the " Great Eevival " and of its consequences. The
religious movement had deepened in the mind of its chief
promoter his conviction of the vital importance of the spir-
itual experience of conversion. This conviction was made
manifest in successive writings issued by him, including
his book on the "Religious Affections " (1746). His ob-
servations during and after the commotion attending the
Revival naturally inspired him with a more strenuous an-
tagonism to everything indicative of laxness of morals in
members of his flock, but it also prompted him to a rising
antipathy, ending in a determined resistance, to a practice
which had been formed and publicly defended by his hon-
ored grandfather and predecessor in office, the revered
Stoddard, the practice of admitting to the communion of
the Lord's Supper persons who were free from scandalous
137
138 APPENDIX
conduct, and desired this privilege as a step on the road to
a new spiritual life, which neither they nor the professed
Christian converts about them recognized as already at-
tained by them. The point in dispute was whether, in the
intention of Jesus, the Lord's Supper was a " converting
ordinance." Edwards took ground resolutely against a
custom which was ardently approved by most of his pa-
rishioners, was sanctified in their eyes by the course of their
previous, venerated pastor, and had spread widely in the
churches of New England. The outbreaking of the disa-
greement that ended in the rupture of the pastoral tie and
the actual exile of Edwards by his own act, as the natural
result, was an instance of ecclesiastical discipline, set on
foot by him from the purest motives, but which, in some
of its incidents, naturally excited earnest and bitter oppo-
sition among the principal families of his parish. In all
the transactions provoked at the outset by this initial con-
tention, however in some particulars Edwards may be
thought to have erred in judgment, it is undeniable that
he uniformly acted with entire self-control, dignity and
freedom from asperity of language and deportment. The
position that he took was at variance with a fixed, widely
diffused public opinion on the theological question at
issue, then the subject of a heated controversy far and
wide. It is an interesting fact that when the struggle at
Northampton had become a thing of the past one of the
foremost leaders there of the party hostile to Edwards
openly and penitently confessed to him his remorse for his
temper and conduct during the contest, imploring and
receiving forgiveness for it. It is, also, an historic fact
worthy of note that the ground taken by Edwards on the
question of the qualifications requisite for full communion
APPENDIX 139
with the visible church came to be sanctioned by the New
England churches generally, and to be regarded by them
as an essential part of their ecclesiastical system. The
Half- Way Covenant, which he opposed, was condemned.
Much, therefore, as Edwards suffered for his conscientious
defence of his opinion in writings and in pastoral adminis-
tration, the issue was the victory of his cause on what was
the extended theatre of the conflict.
II
THE ACCOUNT GIVEN BY EDWARDS OF HIS METHOD
OF STUDY
In the letter to the Trustees of Princeton College,
Edwards refers first to the temporal inconveniences to him-
self and his family which an acceptance of their offer would
involve. But his main objection is said to be his "own
defects," viz., a constitution which begets ef a low tide of
spirits," with a bashful, retiring manner, a taciturn way,
" with a disagreeable dullness and stiffness much unfitting "
him for conversation and for such business as the govern-
ment of a college. Then comes an interesting statement of
his method of study and the great accumulation, conse-
quent upon it, of materials in the form of notes, in great
part records of his own thoughts. Finally he speaks of
his schemes for the composition of various works, several
of which, in a preliminary form, saw the light subsequently
to his death.
Ill
AUGUSTINE ON THE TRINITY AS IMAGED FORTH IN
THE HUMAN MIND
Edwards was apparently acquainted with Augustine's
conception of the imagery of the Trinity in the human
140
APPENDIX
mind, although it does not appear that he had read the
Latin Father's treatise on the Trinity. Augustine sets
forth his, view in varying forms. One of them, a concise
expression, is the following. 1 These three, memory, in-
telligence, will ; since there are not three lives (vitce), hut
one life (vita), nor three minds but one mind (mens), it
follows that there are not three substances, but one sub-
stance (substantia). Elsewhere, as an equivalent of in-
telligence (intelligentia) he uses the words, "interna
visio/' and as an equivalent of will (voluntas) in this con-
nection, he uses love (caritas). He says that the mind
[1] " remembers itself," " recollects by means of memory,"
[2] "knows itself," "by means of intelligence beholds,"
[3] "embraces (amplectitur) through love," and "if love,
by which the Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the
Father, demonstrates in an inexpressible manner the com-
munion of both, what more suitable (convenientius) than
that He who is the Spirit common to both should be styled
Love." "Mind remembers itself, knows itself, loves it-
self ; if thus we discern, trinity we discern."
IV
PRESIDENT T. D. WOOLSEY ON THE PERSONAL TRAITS
AND THE INFLUENCE OF EDWARDS
President Woolsey, in the commemorative discourse
which he delivered in 1870 at the meeting of the descend-
ants of Edwards — of whom he was one — mingles with full
appreciation of his mental and moral qualities and his
influence, touches of just criticism. A number of the
points to which he adverts, I had anticipated before
2 LX., 18.
APPENDIX 141
recurring to his address, but I mention them on account of
his aptitude of expression. Dr. Woolsey speaks of the clear-
ness and penetration of the intellect of Edwards, his high
standard in all things and his sense of spiritual beauty,
his union of the traits of the Apostles Paul and John, his
devotion to biblical study in connection with abstract rea-
soning, his almost feminine tenderness united with mascu-
line vigor and firmness, the blending of principle and feel-
ing in his religious character, his severe, almost excessive
self-criticism. But Dr. Woolsey, in his discriminating
estimate of Edwards, expresses the feeling that there was
" too much repression of natural qualities in the endeavor
after a perfect conformity of will and soul to the will
of God. ... He and others of the best Puritans of
New England ... in the struggle of the human soul
to rise above earthly things ... as a ship in a storm
throws away some of its less essential freight ....
sacrificed what is akin to the human for converse with the
divine. ... To unite the two is perfection : so they
reached it only on one side." Proofs are given by Dr.
Woolsey of the unsurpassed impressiveness of Edwards as a .
preacher in his day in New England. Dr. Woolsey recog-
nizes his great theological influence, but of the modifica-
tions of theology among his followers which sprung up in
New England from his example and influence, he remarks,
"they carried practical views borrowed from him to an
extreme, as in the point of disinterested benevolence. In
all this I seem to see several new tendencies impressed on
religious life. Eirst there is a tendency in a greater
degree toward the subjective in religion. This is good,
but when it impels the mind into self-analysis and con-
tinued examination of motives, may end in great evil.
142 APPENDIX
Again there is a tendency to greater activity in religious
life." This Dr. Woolsey ascribes "to the putting of be-
nevolence as a leading idea into the place which faith tool*:
among earlier Protestants; and hence spring with the same
ease the thousand efforts to do good which have emanated
in New England."
Whoever ponders the foregoing observations of Dr.
Woolsey may see his way to a better understanding than is
common of the Unitarian movement and the division
attending it in the New England churches. Edwards, if
he was a great promoter, was also a discriminating critic,
of Eevivals. They spread under the t( auspices "of the New
England school that succeeded him. Edwards himself was
not blind to the ethical as well as the heavenward rela-
tions of "love to being in general." As concerned his
own feelings and outward conduct, he was reverently at-
tentive to the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount. At
length a more vivid sense of the humane bearings of
the principle of benevolence arose. A reaction appeared
against what was deemed an excessive interest in religious
emotions, which was thought to leave too far in the back-
ground the claims that belong to the duties and services
of the life here below. The natural brotherhood of man,
as well as the moral brotherhood of believers in Christ, the
natural paternity of the Eather, as well as His moral
Fatherhood in relation to believers, excited a new interest.
It is always possible, on the one hand, to forget what in-
junction is the first and great command, or, on the other,
to forget that the second is like unto, or of a piece with,
the same.
